The pad printing process presently competes successfully with printing
techniques such as screen printing, hot stamping, offset printing and mask
spraying in decorative applications.
Today as much as 90% of the decoration in the interior of a car is applied by
pad printing, states Grob. It is still the principal printing technique used in the
watch industry. Pad printing can impress characters onto a completely
assembled plastic keyboard in one stroke; it can print decorative design directly
onto compact discs; it can impart decorations on plastic beverage bottle
closures at fast assembly-line rates.
Pad printing can be applied to flat, cylindrical or odd-shaped parts, using either
one or more colours. In multiple colour printing, the wet-on-wet technique is
used, without drying time between colour applications. These are claimed to
be its main advantages when compared to the other printing processes.