Reducing-Ink-Costs-Customer-Interview

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Reducing
Ink Costs
Albéa and Thoro Packaging
use an ink dispenser
program from Sun
Chemical to reduce ink
inventories and waste.
I
f 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 stor-
age, 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
With
inventory.”
the ink
Lara says that by using the invendispenser
tory on the shelf, Albéa is improving
program,
cash flow and saving a significant
Thoro
amount of money in working capital.
Packaging
“By using the ink we have already
can mix
invested money in, we have dropped
smaller
the value of our inventory by $20,000
batches
in one year,” Lara said. “Eventually,
to match
we will eliminate the entire unused
what is
ink inventory sitting on our shelves
needed for
and move forward with an operating
any print
inventory.”
run.
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. n
Reprinted from packagePRINTING® January 2013 © Copyright 2013, North American Publishing Co., Philadelphia PA 19130