Contracts with Colorful Capabilities

Print shops welcome cost-saving opportunities by bringing ink technology in-house with the help of suppliers.

WHAT'S COOKING IN more of today's in-house ink kitchens are cost-cutting management practices and first-rate capabilities. Many converters can attribute this to special contractual agreements between ink suppliers and print shops.

The agreements, many developed more than a decade ago, have helped converters bring inking competency and ink professionals on-site, allowing them to focus on printing during a time when the ability to handle more short-run jobs and fast turnarounds is imperative to stay competitive.

From the beginning

Ink agreements run the gamut, ranging from complete overhauls of the existing ink room and the establishment of new inking facilities to simply the addition of new management approaches, experienced inking personnel, and technical support. No matter how ink suppliers intervene, however, ink agreements result in reduced raw material and work-off inventories, just-in-time ink access, and an overall well-managed ink lab. "Our ultimate goal is to try to create a situation where the right amount of the right ink is at the right press at the right time, and, hopefully, we will have eliminated [the printer] from having to spend additional resources to do so," said Mike Impastato, vice president of market development at Flint Ink (Ann Arbor, Mich.), which has been providing what Flint Ink calls graphic technical centers (GTC) for years.

To start, a converter has to be able to rationalize the initial capital expenses for new ink equipment and/or employees that it will accrue. According to John Kalkowski, marketing manager of Sun Chemical Corp. (Northlake, Ill.), "It's definitely to the converter's advantage, but they have to have a certain volume to really justify it."

Most ink companies determine the needs of an interested customer by auditing its current situation. The audit incorporates a needs assessment to ensure that the customer's "wants" deliver value to its operation, said Mark Cheatham, manager of customer site operations at Sun Chemical. Don Matthiesen, marketing manager at Environmental Inks & Coatings (EIC, Morganton, N.C.), added, "We work with our customers to find out their desires to ensure that we are making the best use of the agreement."

Adding up the benefits

The benefits of in-house ink labs are clear. A capable person in the ink room, using up-to-date technology and mixing bases to make just enough of the right ink when it's needed, eliminates delivery time and reduces inventory, saving the converter money over the long run.

Surplus ink inventory is a problem all printers deal with. Too often, when buying readymade ink from a supplier, print shops order too much of a color that is used for one specific job. Once the job is run, the ink has to be stored. On-site inking facilities equipped with a dispenser allow the converter to work off that surplus ink. "Using the rework feature on a dispenser creates useful ink from ink inventory resources that have no current productive use," Matthiesen explained. "After time, that capability reduces the inventory of work-off ink because you are making just enough ink to do the job and there is no ink to rework. That's very valuable."

Not only are in-house ink labs able to produce ink just in time, they also offer the capability to create a myriad of colors from a blend of a relatively small number of different bases. "The idea of having bases is that it allows [converters] to have good raw material to mix with," Kalkowski said. "Printers, depending on the number of jobs they do in a day, are dealing with so many different colors per day. That's a lot of different ink blends to deal with if they purchase the ink already mixed—sometimes it can be as many as 3-4,000 colors. But you can make that many different colors from just 16 different bases."

Contrast and compare

The basics of an inking agreement differ from supplier to supplier and converter to converter. For example, in most cases, Sun Chemical places its employees in the print shop's ink facility. Cheatham noted, "Over 200 Sun Chemical employees are in-plants in U.S. print shops." These workers are more than just ink room specialists. They are more in-house consultants who help troubleshoot on the presses, Kalkowski added.

On the other hand, EIC prefers to train the printer's employees, Matthiesen said. "It's easier for the print shop to oversee their own employees, and they can do it more closely than we can."

Flint Ink falls in the middle. The company is willing to train print shop workers or in-plant their own personnel, depending on the customer's preference. Currently, there are hundreds of Flint Ink employees involved in GTC operations, Impastato said.

Two things all ink suppliers agree upon, however, is the basic equipment needed and the necessity of competent ink people in the ink room.

What equipment is installed depends on what the converter needs. Ink dispensers are at the top of the list. Computerized dispensers make inking more precise, have better color matching with accuracy down to a couple of grams of ink, and are able to store color formulas, said Kalkowski. Many suppliers will also install a spectrometer and QA color matching software to ensure the ink formulas and resultant colors are correct.

While equipment is an important part of ink agreements, it isn't worth the money if an ink professional isn't at the controls. Impastato said, "The key to the equipment working well and benefiting the customer is having a qualified ink person. All ink systems require capable, knowledgeable people that can handle all logistics of product, inventory, and technology. If you have a qualified person working in the GTC, then it doesn't matter what equipment you have."

"Print shops need people who can put together good ink formulations," Cheatham said, "and adjust them where needed. Only if there's a capable person in the ink lab can print shops profit from just-in-time mixing and controlled ink inventories."

by: Kate Sharon