The development trend of printing industry under the wave of artificial intelligence



As early as the 1950s, the concept of artificial intelligence was proposed. At present, many heavy physical and repetitive labor of human beings have been replaced by machines, and artificial intelligence has penetrated into more fields and links of People's Daily life and work, "replacing" human judgment, thinking and decision-making. So as to further improve production efficiency and improve people's quality of life.

In 2013, the "Industry 4.0" proposed by Germany is the industrial revolution with intelligent production as the element. The process of world industrialization is only more than a hundred years old, but it has experienced four industrial revolutions. The changes brought about by each revolution were enormous. In 2015, China issued the "Made in China 2025" plan, which includes intelligent manufacturing engineering in the five major projects, once again clearly pointed out that intelligent manufacturing as an important direction of the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing.

In recent years, the rapid development of a new generation of information technology: 5G, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc., is bringing great changes to enterprise production and people's lives. Many domestic brands of industrial robots such as drones, unmanned vehicles, robots, intelligent sensing and control equipment, intelligent detection and assembly equipment, intelligent logistics and warehousing equipment have also reached the international advanced level in terms of performance indicators and application fields.

The increasing maturity of new technologies provides a strong technical guarantee for the implementation of smart factories, and also reduces cost pressure for the industry. The printing industry has also undergone great changes in recent years, such as the use of magnifying glasses to observe the accuracy of overprinting and other issues in the past, and now the automatic detection equipment can automatically detect the lack of graphics, color and other problems. At the same time, intelligent equipment such as robots and automatic palletizing are also increasingly appearing in the operation and production of printing enterprises.

A basis for printing intelligence

01 Internet and the Internet of Things

The concept of "intelligent manufacturing" not only refers to the intelligent production link, but also runs through all the processes of enterprise activities, and even should integrate the resources of the entire industry. Therefore, the technology of the Internet and the Internet of Things is essential.

First of all, it is necessary to rely on the Internet information technology to achieve the combination of the Internet and traditional industries, so as to enhance economic productivity by industrial upgrading. The Internet of Things is an important part of the new generation of information technology, that is, the Internet of things connected. The core and foundation of the Internet of Things is still the Internet, its client can be any item, information exchange and communication between things. The Internet of Things is an important basis for the intelligent internal production of printing enterprises. Through the Internet of Things technology, enterprises can collect the information of all the automated warehouses, unmanned transport vehicles, robots, production machines, workshop sensors, etc. of the entire enterprise through a single "brain", and control them to achieve production optimization.

At the same time, printing companies through the Internet and Internet of Things technology, remote control of all pre-press, printing, post-press equipment, access to all relevant information, so that a variety of resources to achieve higher utilization.

02 Big Data

Nowadays, we are in the rapidly developing information age, and the communication between people is more convenient. Ma Yun once said that the future era will not be the era of IT, but the era of DT. DT stands for data technology. In the author's opinion, for printing enterprises, the value of big data is mainly reflected in the following aspects: first, make full use of big data for precision marketing and lock target customers; Second, use big data to analyze future market changes; Third, use big data information to actively explore new ideas and new blue oceans for transformation.

03 Artificial intelligence technology

At present, many fields of robots can replace or help people complete a variety of work, all boring, dangerous, toxic, harmful work, can be shown by the robot. In addition to being widely used in the field of manufacturing, robots are also used in other fields such as resource exploration and development, disaster relief, medical services, home entertainment, military and aerospace. Robots are important production and service equipment in industrial and non-industrial industries, and they are also indispensable automation equipment in the field of advanced manufacturing technology.

The printing industry in people's impression has always been "dirty, messy, poor" image, although the printing environment has gradually improved, but the noise, odor and other problems are difficult to completely solve, coupled with the traditional printing method usually takes a long time to work, with machines instead of manual is also an inevitable trend. In the past, several people operated one machine, but with the advancement of technology, it is now possible for one person to operate multiple machines. The printing shop of the future may completely abandon manual labor.

Although robots have replaced most of the work, it does not amount to artificial intelligence, because most robots currently do a set of actions set by humans. The ultimate goal of the development of artificial intelligence is to enable machines to think, judge, and solve complex problems like humans.

Second, the prospect of printing intelligent manufacturing

01 More efficient automation technology

02 Innovative human-computer interaction mode

Computer screens, and even more primitive displays, still dominate the industrial landscape, but that's changing. Augmented reality applications can provide more valuable feedback when looking at device components and provide employees with IoT-derived information about manufacturing equipment, enabling companies to better manage and maintain it. Virtual reality can also provide powerful visualizations for workers using more traditional technologies.

03 Better predictive maintenance

Predictive maintenance has been playing an increasingly important role in industrial environments for many years, and the continued growth of iot components also provides more information than ever before. In combination with machine learning and other artificial intelligence tools, modern industrial software is much more effective than in the past, relying on personal experience to determine when equipment parts need to be replaced.

Relying on the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, real-time monitoring of printing-related equipment, timely maintenance and maintenance, so that the machine to avoid failure. Unlike other technologies, the benefits of predictive maintenance are easy to calculate. As an industrial iot technology, predictive maintenance is bound to become an excellent assistant for future industrial managers.

04 Self-service network printing

The concept of network printing has long been proposed, with the support of the network, printing companies can not only break through the limitations of time and space, the tentacles of marketing to a broader field, low-cost, automated, efficient to provide customers with 24 hours of uninterrupted service, but also to maximize the collection of fragmented personalized needs from end consumers. Make it a useful complement to existing sources of business.

In the application market, the number of printing companies involved in network printing is increasing, but it must be admitted that there are few winners, how can we recognize the nature of network printing, establish enterprise automated pre-press process and standardized operating norms. The self-service network printing is like the current e-commerce platform, after all the personalized parameters of the customer are selected, the production begins and is sent to the customer.

05 Integration of upstream and downstream printing enterprises

For printing enterprises, the first stage of intelligent development is to realize the full intelligence of enterprises. Imagine, the future printing enterprises, from raw material management, pre-press plate making, printing production, post-press processing, printing quality management to the final delivery are intelligent. Manual to do may finally only two words "choice", choose what kind of paper, what kind of ink, what kind of process and so on. The second stage of intelligent production may take a long time to achieve and is accompanied by the continuous integration of resources.

Relying on the development of big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things, machine sharing, etc., not only the printing industry can be integrated in the future, avoiding the excess of the entire printing industry, maximizing benefits, maximizing efficiency, and there will also be upstream and downstream resource integration. For example, the use of big data can predict the number of incoming students and the demand for teaching materials, and then, through big data and cloud computing, you can more accurately know the market demand, and integrate printing from upstream papermaking and ink production to a set of resources after printing.

Three summaries

Intelligent printing factory is not for a single equipment, a technology upgrade, but the overall, system comprehensive upgrade, is the deep integration of information technology and manufacturing industry, integrated innovation of fundamental change. It combines modern information and communication technology with network technology and artificial intelligence technology, through the cooperation of intelligent production equipment, intelligent logistics, warehouse management system, industrial robot system integration, cloud service platform, green energy-saving equipment, manufacturing execution system and other key technologies.

The traditional printing industry is very dependent on the number of manual, pre-press, printing, post-press, logistics and other links need a large number of manual operations, the transfer between each link, the connection brings huge labor intensity and the working environment of employees has been the problem faced by the printing industry.

With the continuous development of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence technology, intelligent printing factories can connect all aspects of traditional printing together for unified and coordinated management. At the same time, each link will gradually reduce the need for labor. Finally, printing enterprises will realize the digitalization and intelligent control of all equipment, the automation and unmanned operation of transportation and logistics, as well as the information and real-time interaction of production management, so as to improve quality and efficiency, reduce loss and labor intensity, reduce the number of personnel, and reduce costs.

Artificial intelligence will bring unprecedented value to the printing industry, form a new business model, and ultimately establish a highly flexible, efficient operation of personalized, digital, large-scale printing products and services.