Units of capacity for the manufacture of flexo printing plates

[nomadreid]

I am not sure that this is the right place to post this question, so I will be happy to let any moderator move it. (I would be less happy to find out that the question has no place in PF, but I would accept it.)
I have been asked to make a list of American manufacturers of plates for flexographic printing, along with the capacity of each one. The "one" is ambiguous (manufacturer or plate), but since the person who requires this list suggests that capacity is in square meters per year, I infer that she is thinking of the capacity of production, not the capacity of an individual plate. But said person is an engineer not well versed in this area, so I have been looking for the dimensions (units) used to correctly characterize the capacity of a factory, without success. (How to find out this number is another chapter, but if I can't even specify the units of the quantity I am asking about, I would never get to that chapter.)

 

[berkeman]

Maybe the External Links at the bottom of the Wikipedia article might be useful? (Especially the "Flexographic Technical Association" link at the end)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexography

It almost seems like you would need to find a study that's been done on the capacity -- sometimes you see marketing groups that put out such whitepapers as part of the planning process for future production and investment...

 

[anorlunda]

@berkeman is right. You typically get that kind of information by hiring a market research firm, not asking engineers or scientists.

 

[jrmichler]

The Flexographic Technical Association has all the information you are looking for. Join them, then your membership entitles you to ask for the information you want. These type of technical associations do many types of marketing surveys and share the results with their members.

Side note: I once headed a team that built a wide web high speed flexo printer. It has been, and still is, a successful product.

 

[nomadreid]

Thanks for the helpful replies, berkeman, anorlunda and jrmichler. Yes, I had come across the FTA (one of the two external links in Wikipedia – I will also try the other one), and wrote them my question. But it is clear that as I am not a member they are unlikely willing to wish to answer, so, yes, joining is an excellent option, although I should pass this option (and the membership fees) on to the engineer who wants all this data. I will definitely suggest it. True, the engineer should hire a market research firm instead of giving the task to a secretary, but…., so I anyway, although my fear expressed in the original post that this is perhaps not the best venue for the question seems to have been borne out, the suggestions are nonetheless useful.

 

[nomadreid]

Update: I ended up submitting data on the general size of the firm, along with the contact information for the firm so that the engineer requesting the data can ask each individual firm, or join the FTA himself, or both. For the general size of the firm, I ended up using the three parameters:
Single location or multiple locations
number of employees (approx)
profit last year (approx)
The first parameter can be gleaned from the website (e.g., "contact"), whereas the next two are found in the website "Owler".

 

[anorlunda]

For the general size of the firm, I ended up using the three parameters:

It sounds like you taught yourself the methods of market researchers.

 

[nomadreid]

It sounds like you taught yourself the methods of market researchers.