Of course, other kinds of substrate problems can interfere with production. These include streaks, air bubbles or fisheyes in the coating, slitting dust, and other surface residue. Getting ink to stick to a substrate can become like mixing oil and water, and printing can become very difficult. The average printer can't necessarily control these types of contamination because they relate to material production or conversion. Since these problems are often unnoticeable until the job is set up or running, printers should always inspect incoming substrates and resolve such printability issues with their vendors.
Dust causes the most problems for the average screen printer and it is the easiest to quantify.
While less critical applications aren't quite as affected by the presence of dust on the substrate, dust control offers tangible cost benefits that should make all screen printers sit up and take notice. In a perfect printing world, we would prevent dust from entering our shops, rather than be forced to remove it later. One very important reason for attacking a dust problem is the reduction in scrap rates, because every dusty part you print qualifies for the scrap bin. Let's look at an example of the toll that can be taken on your bottom line. Labor and machine costs will significantly increase the losses.