A Full Reveal of the Complex Printing Process of the Renminbi

[ppzhan abstract] China's banknote printing industry used to be very closed, with factories identified only by code names. Today it is slowly lifting its mysterious veil, and the sign "Beijing Banknote Printing Plant" now hangs openly on the front gate. When people get brand-new banknotes from the bank, they would never imagine that the notes have had such a complicated journey! Now let the editor introduce it to you in detail.

A single renminbi banknote goes through at least a dozen processes from hand-engraved template to leaving the factory. Working in a banknote printing plant, although banknotes are everywhere in sight, the production quantity is strictly controlled; even defective renminbi banknotes cannot be thrown away at will, so it is only natural that the workers are so calm.

The task of printing renminbi is accomplished through the division of labor and cooperation of 11 enterprises under China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, which is directly led by the People's Bank of China. The place where renminbi is printed is called a banknote printing plant.

The renminbi printing process can be divided into the following basic steps: paper inspection, prepress processing and plate-making, trial printing, formal printing, quality inspection, cutting, quality inspection, and sealing for storage.

The banknote paper used for printing renminbi is watermark paper, a special paper used for banknote printing. This paper is produced by three banknote paper mills under China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation: Hebei Baoding Banknote Paper Mill, Jiangsu Kunshan Banknote Paper Mill and Chengdu Banknote Paper Mill. In addition to its physical and chemical properties such as wear resistance, folding resistance, acid resistance and alkali resistance, it also has built-in anti-counterfeiting features such as a security thread and colored red and blue fibers, and it is covered with watermark patterns used for anti-counterfeiting.

Before printing, workers must carry out a sheet-by-sheet quality inspection of the paper. Because watermarks have a directional issue, each sheet must be stacked in the direction of the watermark pattern, and a punching machine is used to punch holes at the edge for positioning. There is no room for error.

Before renminbi is printed, printing templates must be made, just as in ordinary printing. Because graphic anti-counterfeiting is used, when creating the note face, the corresponding design software in the computer must be used to design various subtle and complex anti-counterfeiting patterns as well as other related text and patterns, and to output them as films for later use.

The printed renminbi is sent to the inspection and sealing workshop, where quality inspection workers check the quality of every renminbi banknote under the light: in the inspection and sealing workshop, checking the quality of renminbi is divided into two steps; the first step is to inspect the large sheets, that is, to inspect the large sheets printed with several renminbi notes each that come off the printing press one by one. At this point the quality inspection is mainly a macroscopic check for quality problems, such as whether the colors are accurate, whether there is damage, and whether there are missing prints...

After the large sheets have been inspected, the next process begins: cutting. Cutting means cutting the renminbi on the large sheet into small notes, the same size as the renminbi we normally use; what follows is the inspection of the small renminbi notes, for example: whether the serial numbers are printed incorrectly, whether the colors are even, whether the watermark is upside down...

Then, the banknotes that pass inspection are sealed for storage and transported to banks to enter circulation in society.

A relevant person introduced: "When working in a banknote printing plant, every process is monitored by cameras. In fact, the strictest monitoring facility is your own heart. Facing stack after stack of brand-new banknotes, your heart must be calm, as calm as an old farmer growing vegetables facing a bundle of cabbage..."

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-361800.html