Changing reading habits and purchasing patterns have prompted the C&C team to continuously look for newer and greener technologies and smarter manufacturing processes. [related]
“Our Digital Technology Innovation Center, for instance, offers short digital print runs with numerous binding choices and cover treatments, at comparable quality to what clients expect from traditional offset printing,” says deputy general manager Francis Ho, whose team recently installed a new inkjet web-fed Founder EagleJet P4400 press to expand its onecolor digital production capacity. “Going digital allows clients to print as needed and reduce inventory costs as well as storage space. For us, it is about enhancing our range of value-added services while promoting sustainability.”
That is also the logic behind the purchase of a new eightcolor Komori LED UV press, which will commence operations in C&C’s Shenzhen facility in the first half of 2025. “We already have two of these and have reaped the benefits of their efficient make-ready with automatic plate-changing and cleaning, and fast-speed adjustments,” says Ho. “But the best part is that the LED UV system minimizes scratches and dirt on printed sheets, and its high-speed drying enables folding directly after printing. Such improved efficiencies and greener solutions are exactly what we need.”
Automation is prevalent in the C&C printing, binding, and logistics workshops. Take the auto-binding line: visual detection devices throughout the casing-in process ensure accuracy. The inline packing system places books into cartons and seals, labels, and straps the cartons before robotic arms stack them into pallets. Then automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) move the RFID-tagged pallets to the warehouse.
Ho notes that C&C has replaced packaging materials with more eco-friendly alternatives, including “Kraft paper adhesive tape to replace PP tape and shrinkwrapping with 30% recycled PE film instead of the traditional POF type.” He adds that FSC-certified papers accounted for nearly 90% of the total tonnage used in C&C’s export products in the first half of 2024. Sustainability strategies such as these led to the company’s receiving the Carbon Footprint Certificate from the Shenzhen Institute of Standards and Technology in December.
Ho also plans to introduce an advance planning and scheduling (APS) system soon. “A lean-manufacturing method enabling concurrent synchronization of materials and production scheduling fits perfectly with our existing ERP and MES information management systems and smart energy management platform.”
Intelligent production and manufacturing systems, Ho adds, “offer improved accuracy and operational speed and, in the longer term, achieve greater sustainability by using—and wasting—fewer resources. Anything that makes our print manufacturing operations better and greener will ultimately benefit our clients—and the world that we all share.
