SIC 2796 Platemaking and Related Services

Contenidos

• NAICS CODE(S).
• INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT.
• ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE.
• BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT.
• CURRENT CONDITIONS.
• INDUSTRY LEADERS.
• WORKFORCE.
• FURTHER READING.

SIC 2796

This category covers establishments primarily engaged in making plates for printing purposes and in related services. Also included are establishments primarily engaged in making positives or negatives from which offset lithographic plates are made. These establishments do not print from the plates they make, but prepare them for use by others. Engraving for purposes other than printing is classified in SIC 3479: Coating, Engraving, and Allied Services, Not Elsewhere Classified.

NAICS CODE(S)

323122

Prepress Services

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

In 2006, the U.S. prepress services industry, including platemaking, had revenue of $3.1 billion. Of all plate shipments, approximately 40 percent were lithographic plates, 35 percent flexographic plates, and 14 percent gravure plates. All other printing plates made up the remainder. Computer-to-plate systems (CTP) and digital technology had a significant impact on the industry at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and traditional platemaking was increasingly replaced by newer technologies.

ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE

Most companies in the platemaking industry served lithographic printers. Lithography was a printing process whereby ink was applied to a flat printing surface (plate) that was treated with grease. Blank, or non-image, areas of the surface repelled the ink, while the greased areas held it. The inked surface could then be transferred directly to paper by means of a press. In the popular offset (planographic or litho-offset) process, the inked image was first printed on a rubber cylinder and then transferred to other materials.

Platemaking companies created the templates that printers used to transfer images to the rubber cylinder or other printing media. The plate cylinder was usually zinc, aluminum, or a special alloy. Its porous surface was coated with a photosensitive material. When exposed to an image, the coated area hardened and the coating on the non-image areas was washed away. Ink, which was continually deposited on the plate cylinder by inking rollers, was accepted by the greasy image on the plate. Modern offset printing plates were usually cylindrical, allowing them to provide a continuous transfer of ink to a rubber-covered, or blanket, cylinder.

A variety of plates were used for different offset printing processes and print jobs. Basic mono-metal plates were made of zinc or aluminum and functioned as described above. The plate was usually exposed to an image by covering it with a negative of text or illustrations and exposing it to intense light, after which the coating on the unexposed areas was washed away. A slight variation was the presensitized plate, which had a coating with a longer life span and could be made of paper or plastic for short print jobs.

...