The Professional Class Structure and the Fundamental Technologty of the Malaysian Printing Industry

Introduction

Malaysia with a population of over 21 million people has a multi-ethnic culture consisting of Malays, Chinese, Indian, Ibans, Kadazans, Eurasians and other ethn ic groups comprising the country's cosmopolitan population
Malaysians are bilingual and many speak more than 2 languages and the national l anguage is Bahasa Malaysia and English language is widely used in commerce and t rade, education, industry and hence communication is seldom a problem among its citizens and business.
The labour force is around 10-12 million and the printing industry alone employs between 70,000 to 120,000 people usually falls within the age of 17 to 50 years Malaysins are well known to be deligent, hard working and willing to learn. In printing, the positive attitude towards work is highly commendable and something to be proud of.

The Malaysian Printing Industry is a very important industry in Malaysia as it p rovides the main media for education, communication, dissemination of knowledge and information. Although in recent years the potential media and data processin g in computers have been greatly developed, it has to be as economically availab le or acessible compare to print media. Printed matters are still by far the che apest and most direct source of information communication and dissemination. Besides being the most convenient, it is also by large easily retrievable. It is also the main medium for packaging for food and consumer products. Thus the pr inting industry is a very essential industry in our daily lives.
According to the information supplied by the Government on 18 September, 1999, M alaysia has 3,200 licenced printing companies comprising of small, medium and bi g size printers. Most of the printing companies concentrated in urban towns and business centres in Klang valley, Penang and Johor Baru, Johor.
In Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley alone it its estimated that there are more than 1,300 printers. The Malaysia Printing Industry as a whole is believed to be one of the top five largest industry in the manufacturing sector with an annual estimately turnover to be around 7.5 billion malaysian ringgit.
The offset and packaging printing alone employ between 65,000 to 70,000 people, the tin manufacturing sector employs more than 5,000 to 7,000 workers and the pl astic sector has more than 25,000 workers.

Our Malaysian Government is very supportive towards the printing industry in rem oving various form of taxes and offer incentives to help the industry for upgrad ing. It also helps the industry to find new markets by conducting trde missions to overseas periodically and also by MATRADE.
In realisation of the importance of skilled personnel in ensuring continuous gro wth of the industry, our government has played its vital role in establishing v arious educational centres to enhance the knowledge of printing in the country. Courses of certificates to degree levels are offered at vocational institutions and of institutions of higher learning for instance diploma and degree courses a re conducted by MARA. Certificate course in printing is now available in Pusat G iat Mara, Bangi, Selangor. Basic machine operation and maintenance course are al so available in places like Industrial Training Institutes in Kuala Lumpur and o ther towns, Monfort Boys School in Shah Alam, Selangor.
The private sector has also played a great role and dynamic step to further stre nthen the development and growth of the industry namely the EAC Graphics (will b e known as Heidelberg Sdn. Bhd) and Intergrafica Print & Pact (M) Sdn. Bhd (formerly known as Votra (M) Sdn. Bhd). The centres serve to provide training and edu cation to its customers upgrading their skills and introduction of total quality control systems from sensitometry to production plant layout and systems design up to printing investment consultancy.

With so much of technological and training skills back up both by the public and private sector, it is without doubt the Malaysian Printing Industry will be tec hnologically advanced and in the near future should be one of the leading Printi ng Trade House in the Asia Pacific Region.

The wide and multi-faceted printing industry in Malaysia can be broadly professi onally classified into major market segments namely

1. Pre-Press companies like Colour Separation, DTP and Imagesetters, Typesetters, Gravure Cylinders Trade House.
2. Commercial printers such as Publication Printers, Label Printers, Security Printers, Neswpaper Printers, Electronic Non-Impact Imaging Companies, Computer Form Printers.
3. Packaging/Converting companies for Flexible Packaging or Plastic Bags, Paper Bags, Corrugated manufacturing and Converting Carton Packaging.
4. Post Press on Binding/Finishing Companies which involve in Folding,Collating book, Binding, Finishing Work as UV Coating, Lamination and including Paper Converters and Diecutters.
5. Others-Screen Printing, Flexo Printing and Metal Printing

In this category of Pre-Press, the number of employees usually range from 10 to 200 employees depending on the size of the company. The big ones like Far East offset &Engraving employs about 300 employees, has 9 scanners, 6 high end electronic page making and retouching systems as well as a comprehensive desktop publishing section. A high percentage of work done is for export producing advertising, magazines, c offee table books and general pubilcation. The Pre-Press companies will always invest in the latest high tech equipment to achieve the level of business.They are usually dedicated and give a value added service. Today the graphic art and printing industry is at an apex of technical versatil ity never achieved before. Excellence means more than having advanced technology regular training and retraining plus dedicated work force is a must to keep abreastand ahead of changes in the printing industry.

2.Commercial Printers-Publication printers, Label Printers, Security Printers, Newspaper printers, Electronic Non-Impact imaging companies, Computer Form printers.

The Commercial Printers apart from the newspaper printers are usually very aggre sive and with advance state of the art and majority of them have multi colour of fset printing machines.Some of them even have multicolour web offset printing machines. They employ from a range of 20 to 50 workers.
The techmology use is of multi colour and their finishing service is done by out side contractor.However there are companies which own in house binding equipment s. So far about less than 5 companies used computer to plate printing. The newspaper printer employs web technology to print the daily newspaper.They employ in house DTP Publishing system and operate their own network of distribution. Some of them even have the latest ISDN transfer of file to different location on spot.The work is carride out in shifts and the workforce is huge.

3.Packaging/Converting companies for flexible or Plastic bags,paper bags,corrugated manufacturing and converting carton packaging

This group of printing is very large and own a few multi colour machines to cate r for the market. Investment is usually more than RM 2 million and the above. Majority of them install specialised die cut machines, folder gluer and embossin g machines to ease up the finishing work. In this category,many of them have their own factories and are usually concentra ted in big town areas. They employ about 150 workers depending on the sizes of the companies and currently the packaging printers are doing very well to suppo rt the strong indirect export markets.

4.Post Press-Binding/Finishing Companies which involve folding,collating work,binding,finishing work as UV coating,lamination and including paper converters and die cutters

The post press companies usually have automatic binding machines,trimmer,stitche r,sewing machines,folding machines,hard cover case maker and casing in machine. Employment of workforce range from 10 to 40 workers and normal time for bindi ng work depending on the volume of work will be 2 to 3 days. In the finishing work catering for calendering,UV Coating, Spot Coating, Pearl Coating, Water Base varnish,Lamination and Pattern Embossing,most companies in t his trade use the latest technology to cope up with the high demand by customers. They employ between 15 to 40 workers and delivery time is about 1 to 2 days

5.Others

The Silk Screen Printing and Flexography printing operate on a small scale and t hey cater for the needs of locals only. Usually they employ 10 to 20 workers. The Malaysian printing industry affected by the economic slowdown since July 199 7 is now bouncing back quickly as evidenced by the recent international printing exhibition held in August,1999 and back up by the supportive Government in enco uraging development.Given another year or two,the Malaysian Printing Industry is optimistic that more printing companies will take up Ctp and digital process. T he strong optimism will materalise.