Women take the lead at Advanced Printing

As one of the most successful private enterprises in China’s label printing industry, Advance Printing has developed into a modern high-tech enterprise over the last 22 years.

Headquartered in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, the company has set up three plants in China, located in Tianjin, Guangzhou and Xinjiang, which allows the converter to reach East, South, North and northwest China - the four major economic regions in the Chinese market. Advance Printing is quickly becoming a leader in the Chinese label printing industry.

The success of the company can be attributed to one woman: the 31-year career of Ms. Cai Yuqin, founder and chair of Advance Printing.

Lifelong career

Yuqin joined Suzhou Dongyi Packaging & Printing Company in 1992. During this period, she learned a lot about label printing technology and sales.

‘The more I found out about the label printing industry, the more I was attracted to it,’ she says. ‘A small label can play a very big role in improving the overall packaging effect of products, such as increasing the shelf appeal and attracting the attention of consumers. But manufacturing that label requires investment in high-level printing and finishing technology.’

According to Yuqin, this inspired her entrepreneurial career. When she began her career, China was in a period of reform and development, which opened excellent opportunities for China’s labels and packaging industry. Many international brands had settled in China’s Suzhou Industrial Park, such as L’Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, Philips, Siemens and more.

After leaving Suzhou Dongyi in 2000, Yuqin registered Advance Printing the following year. The company was located at Suzhou Jinji Lake, a location perfect for providing high-quality label products and services for these global brands.

The tenet that drives Cai Yuqin is: ‘Choose one goal in life,’ she says. Over the years, she has remained true to her original aspiration – to make Advance Printing a leading player in China’s label market.

This year is Advance Printing’s 23rd anniversary. From a single factory in Suzhou, the company has expanded to four production sites, forming a complete supply chain network across China.

People-focused management

Yuqin has a deep and realistic understanding of how the label industry functions.

‘Printing was actually a boring and tiring job, especially in the early days of Advance Printing when label printing technology was mechanical and manual, which is not so friendly for female operators,’ says Yuqin. ‘The proportion of female employees in the whole industry is probably not more than 20 percent. With an increase in the automation of print and post-press technology, however, women are much less restricted in the jobs they can take.’

Continues Yuqin, ‘As a female leader in this industry, I have a deep understanding of the potential and abilities of our female employees. At Advance Printing, we give women a lot of opportunities to acquire new skills, explore their potential and value, and help them break through and grow, enhancing their happiness and job satisfaction.’

Ms. Xue Aidi, who has been in Advance Printing for 20 years, is now the manager of the company’s quality inspection department.

‘Advance Printing is not only a job for me to earn a living,’ she says. ‘Over the years it has become an important part of my life. This job gives me a great sense of satisfaction and achievement. I have personally moved from being a manual quality inspector to operating an automatic inspection machine, and I now manage the entire department.’ Aidi adds, ‘Ms. Cai is a leader who is easy to get close to. She often visits our workshop and communicates with us, not only about our work, but she also cares about our daily lives.’

Wang Ping, who has been in the company for 15 years, has developed her career from a quality inspector, to a supervisor, to customer service.

‘Ms. Cai is a very charming, confident and elegant lady,’ Ping says. ‘She is the collective idol of our female employees, leading and motivating us to be more positive and to keep improving to be the person we can be.’

Ren Zhongpin has been a front-line quality inspector in the company for 12 years. She says: ‘Ms. Cai is always a good guide. She is very generous and is always forward-looking. Our quality inspection equipment has always been kept up to date. This is closely related to her planning and investment strategy.’

This type of leadership has allowed Advance Printing to retain a very loyal group of employees, which is one of the main reasons for the company’s steady growth in the label industry. Permanent employees - those with more than five years’ service - account for more than half of the workforce.

Yuqin says that the company gives priority to helping solve the problems of employees’ families as well as the challenges they face in their day-to-day working lives. In addition, Yuqin attaches great importance to cultivating her own improvement.

In 2022, Advance Printing was certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE).

Investment strategy

Just as she keeps pushing her own personal development, Yuqin has always insisted that Advance Printing constantly transforms itself and keeps pace with the changing requirements of brands and the market. Yuqin has shown great courage in her bold investment decisions.

For example, Advance Printing was an early investor in inline narrow web flexo presses – most recently including a 10-color Spande S7 press - followed by digital printing technology and AVT automatic inspection equipment. Its hardware investments have put the company at the forefront of the label industry in China.

Advance Printing attaches special importance to its sustainability strategy. The company was certified carbon neutral in September 2022. Among the many measures implemented, the company added thermal insulation to the walls, upgraded equipment with LED-UV curing, installed solar panels on the roof, adopted ‘green’ delivery vehicles and installed a centralized water-cooling system, along with other measures.

Advance Printing has become the first supplier to pilot a new initiative to reduce the carbon footprint of L’Oreal in the North Asia region. Today, the range of products produced by Advance Printing includes pressure-sensitive labels, shrink sleeve labels, in-mold labels, traceable anticounterfeiting labels and personalized labels.

Key end-use markets include household chemical, food and beverage, medicine and health care and electronics, serving brands including L’Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, Shell and other global companies.

Yuqin says, ‘The development of Advance Printing has gone hand in hand with the growth of our customer’s businesses. Their growth has enabled us to grow, and I am very grateful to all of our supportive customers who have accompanied Advance Printing through every stage of our development.’

For female workers in the label printing industry, she believes that womens’ natural strengths of resilience, patience, perception and tenacity should be taken full advantage of.

‘We must continue to enable women and stop assuming there are limits to what they can achieve. Women will have infinite possibilities in the label industry of the future.’

Talking to all females in the label industry, or who are considering joining it, she concludes, ‘Although the road may be long, it will come to an end; although things are difficult to do, they will be resolved. Let’s make 2023 the year we take action.'