Printing is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the United States?employing over 1,173,000 people in almost 50,000 establishments, and selling over $155.7 billion of products in 1999. The industry is dominated by small- and medium-sized businesses, most employing fewer than 20 employees.

• Printing Process Overview
• Process Flow Diagrams
  • Non-heatset Sheetfed
  • Heatset Web
  • Non-heatset Web

All process flow diagrams courtesy of Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Sciences

Applications

Lithographic printing is well suited for printing both text and illustrations in short to medium length runs of up to 1,000,000 impressions. Typical products printed with offset printing processes include:

• General commercial printing
• Newspapers
• Business Forms
• Quick printing
• Books
• Financial and Legal Documents

Did You Know?

• Lithographic Printing makes up 68.5% of the printing industry.
• 47% of lithographic printers are in the major metropolitan areas.
• In the US, 79% of lithographic operations have 19 or fewer employees.
• The annual shipments generated by printers were estimated by PIA as $155,711.0 M in 1999.

According to PIA, in 1999 (EPA Regions):

	EPA Geographic Region		No. of Printing Establishments		No. of Employees
	1		2,949		79,595
	2		5,983		143,640
	3		4,687		132,947
	4		6,825		167,297
	5		10,754		295,326
	6		4,843		86,904
	7		2,026		46,480
	8		1,641		30,916
	9		7,180		132,984
	10		1,839		41,256

The Standard Industry Classification (SIC) Codes often associated with lithographic printing operations are:

	SIC Code	Name
	271*	Newspapers
	274*	Miscellaneous Publishing
	272*	Periodicals
	275*	Commercial Printing
	273*	Book Printing
	276*	Manifold Business Forms

The NAIICS Codes often associated with lithographic printing operations are:

	NAIICS Codes	Name
	323110	Commercial Lithographic Printing
	3231101	Magazine & periodical printing
	3231103	Label and wrapper printing
	3231105	Catalog and directory printing
	3231107	Financial and legal printing
	3231109	Advertising printing
	323110B	Other general job printing
	323110W	Commercial lithographic printing
	323114	Quick Printing
	323115	Digital Printing
	3231169	Checkbooks
	323116W	Manifold business forms printing
	323117	Books Printing
	3231171	Textbook printing and binding
	3231173	Technical, scientific, and professional book printing and binding
	3231175	Religious book printing and binding
	3231177	General book printing and binding
	3231179	Other book printing and binding
	323117A	Book printing only
	323117	Pamphlet printing and binding or printing only
	323117W	Book printing, nsk