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Coloured Paper – Produce or Purchase?

Real scenario:

Result during the last local government elections in Bavaria.
In the communities mayors and local council members were elected and in the administrative districts the chide executives and councillors.


In the course of these elections many votes for various persons could be cast and in order to avoid confusion, a kind of colour guidance system was introduced:

• Yellow ballot papers for election of the first mayor,
• Pink ballot papers for the election of the local council members.
• Communities belonging to the county get in addition a small light blue ballot paper for the election of the district chief executives
• And a big white one for the election of the county councillor.

This is an example taken form the website of the Aktiven Bürger (active citizens) Bad Königshofen.

But exactly this coloured voting support has obviously become a problem.

The newspaper Frankenpost Kulmbach reported:

• Printer have difficulties with the reorders.
• Coloured paper runs short, in particular the pink one.

Newspaper report : Source Frankenpost of 25 January 2008

"Pink sold out", reports Florian Kraus of paper wholesaler Schneidersöhne Nürnberg. Schneidersöhne supplies 3000 printers in North Bavaria (including copy shops) and could have sold –now before the elections -  15 to 20 percent more pink-coloured paper for the community elections. Paper which is normally not demanded in this quality.

It would not be so easy to produce further pink coloured paper, as coloured paper is related with a big expenditure, explains Kraus and lets the reader know, that paper machines have to be completely cleaned after the production of coloured paper. For that reason coloured papers are only produced every six weeks.

The reason was simple: It was difficult to plan the paper consumption for a community election, as nobody knows beforehand which colours are actually taken and which quantities are actually needed.“ 

The newspaper reported as well that due to the high expenditure it is not so easy for the paper factories to have coloured papers in standard colours subsequently produced, no tot mention special or customized colours. Production-technical reasons, such as pulp size can only by purchased with a delivery quantity from 50 tons.

When ordering too early, which is timely and at the same time adapted to production, the printer takes the risk of miscalculation. What concerns quantity and delivery times production of coloured paper has to be well planned and commercially calculated. Reorders often have an unacceptable delivery time (> 6 weeks), because paper industry have to maintain their  determined production schedules.

Last but not least cost calculation is an issue as well. Coloured paper is sold at double price compared to white paper. Storing costs (storing space) and storage time costs  (capital lock up) have to be added, because coloured web paper can be only purchased in larger quantities while respecting certain delivery times.

That is  exactly where coating plants are needed to dye a paper web utilizing the in-line production, which the company Protec Service- und Vertriebs GmbH, designs, supplies and installs in accordance to the customers’ needs.

One or double sided (also double sided with different colours), varnishing or providing paper with special functions, e.g.  CB/CFB/CF coating from web to web or web to sheet – that is the business field specialist from the "Harz" .

Paper weights from 45 g/m² - 250 g/m² with a colour coating of 0,8 /m² - 4 g/m² per page are no particular challenge for the Protec products.

The scope of viscosity of the processed colours or emulsions may range from 13 – 20 seconds, measured with DIN 4 measuring jug.

Whether it is about finished print products, envelopes, napkins of packaging material - we provide the solutions for everything.
If you are interested, do not hesitate to challenge our specialists and develop a solution in cooperation with them, to design a price-performance model which means for you savings in  production cost combined with a competitive advantage.

We accompany you from consultation over planning to engineering, support you during the launch of the product and also in daily operation processes with good, fast and competent service – these are the guidelines of our company.
This goal of our company is achieved through cooperation with other companies with most modern IT Technology in a worldwide network.

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