Reducing Ink Costs

If there is one certainty ink manufacturers could guarantee in today's marketplace, it would be uncertainty. While there has been a slow but steady recovery for ink manufacturers since the global recession, the industry continues to face persistent volatility in the global supply chain.

Over the past three years, ink manufacturers saw many raw material suppliers shut down their plants and rationalize product lines leading to a major imbalance in supply and demand and a sharp rise in prices. This led ink manufacturers to pass along many of these costs to their customers.

Uncertainty continues

Perhaps the most important area of concern for ink manufacturers revolves around oil and petrochemical derived products, such as mineral oils, solvents, carbon black, resins, and intermediates. Oil and feedstock costs driven by geopolitical risk and commodity investor activities make these products very difficult to predict despite relatively static supply and demand fundamentals.

Other factors, such as competition for the same raw materials in other markets and weather conditions all contribute to the rising costs of printing ink.

Despite these price increases, ink costs may seem trivial at an estimated five percent or less of the total cost of a printed job. Package printers frequently find that inks can cost them in other ways, such as incorrectly mixed spot colors that not only waste ink, but could also result in rejected printed material.

While purchasing ink containers of special colors can eliminate much of the risk, this approach also frequently results in leftover ink that needs to be properly disposed of or takes up valuable shelf space in the production area, again increasing overall ink costs.

Solving the ink cost puzzle

Two converters have saved a significant amount of money through the Sun Chemical Dispenser Program, a system that provides in-house ink dispensing and gives printers the ability to mix the exact amount of ink that they need when they need it. Package printers that participate in the program must agree to purchase a minimum annual amount of Sun Chemical bases and inks and in return receive a GFI Mx12 dispenser that provides spot color accuracy to within 0.001/lb.

Albéa

Based in Shelbyville, Tenn., Albéa (formerly Alcan Packaging) is one of the world's largest lamination tube package printers in the world. With 250 employees working seven days a week, it produces more than two million tubes a day for many of the largest brand names in the health and beauty, food, and pharmaceutical industries. Using both flexo and letterpress printing processes, Albéa forms tubes with the caps for their customers to fill with product and then seal.

Before Albéa invested in the Sun Chemical Dispenser Program, it bought pre-mix colors and some base colors in order to mix, weigh, and measure what it needed to achieve the right spot color.

Because Albéa had to mix a minimum of five pounds of ink, the company would put the leftover ink into storage, but there was never enough left over to meet the needs for the next round of printing. This led to a growing amount of unused ink inventory left in storage.

"We used to buy pre-mixed spot color inks by the pound, but now we just purchase base colors and use it for everything," said Julio Lara, a multi-plant manager at Albéa. "This switch alone has helped us to save over $2,000 per month."

A key reason why Albéa determined to start using the GFI dispenser was the ability of the machine to mix leftover inks and provide a color match within the necessary delta E requirement.

"What I really love about this system is that I can take a blue or green ink that is sitting unused on my shelf, scan a bar code, and put in the electronic recipe of the spot color I want," Lara said. "The dispenser then mixes the spot color recipe I need. There is no human error in color matching—the color has been perfect every time for us and more importantly, it is reducing my inventory."

Lara says that by using the inventory on the shelf, Albéa is improving cash flow and saving a significant amount of money in working capital. "By using the ink we have already invested money in, we have dropped the value of our inventory by $20,000 in one year," Lara said. "Eventually, we will eliminate the entire unused ink inventory sitting on our shelves and move forward with an operating inventory."

With color-matching challenges taken out of the equation, fulfilling the brand requirements of its customers saves Albéa additional manpower. In the past, the company had a full-time mixer who spent the entire day mixing the spot color inks needed for all of the day's print jobs. That person still spends time mixing inks, but now has time available to be able to do other work within the facility.

Lara also sees an indirect savings in the disposal of ink. "In the past, we had to remove ink-soiled containers, and it cost extra to remove those containers," Lara said. "Now the disposal of the ink containers used with the dispenser is no longer considered a hazardous waste. The cartridges that we currently use can just go into the waste stream. It is another small, indirect savings."

Thoro Packaging

Thoro Packaging is a Southern California-based manufacturer of folding cartons with customers in the medical, pharmaceutical, biomedical, cosmetic, and high technology industries.

With a team of 135 employees located in Corona, Thoro Packaging prints on a wide range of paperboard substrates using three offset presses in 95,000 square feet of space. One press uses UV inks while the remaining two use conventional inks.

In the past, Thoro used two full-time in-plant ink partners/suppliers who manually measured and mixed its inks. Thoro also received large containers of base colors and had to mix a minimum of 5 lbs. of ink. Since the company primarily does short runs and could not mix less than 5 lbs., its inventory of unused ink grew rapidly.

"We run a lot of short runs where under 5 lbs. of ink is called for," said Janet Steiner, president of Thoro Packaging. "Now we can dispense the exact amount of ink that we need and if we need any extra ink during the print job, we can make as little as one pound of ink on demand, without causing downtime. It is very easy and cost-effective for us."

The change in the ink measuring and mixing process has provided significant savings for Thoro. "Our inventory has decreased by half," Steiner said. "The reason for this is that there is now less over-mixing of inks. The dispenser program allows us to mix smaller batches. With the old manual process, batches would be mixed in larger quantities to avoid going back and mixing more ink if needed."

Due to the automated measurement and color consistency of the ink formulations used in the dispenser program, Thoro saves 3-4 man-hours per day in labor as compared to the old manual process. The new system allows for more multitasking by the ink room staff with the freed-up time.

"As a folding carton company with a majority of ink usage being PMS or special match colors, the introduction of the dispenser program was a nice cost savings and a nice way to speed up the customer acceptance of a job," Steiner said.

One of the key reasons why Thoro switched to the dispenser program was to reduce ink waste. As a company dedicated to being as green as possible, Thoro reduced ink waste by 30 percent and batches were brought tighter to the estimate, creating less leftover ink to be disposed. pP