© inca digital printers ltd company confidential making inkjet “industrial”: a rough guide to...

© INCA DIGITAL PRINTERS LTD

Company Confidential

Making inkjet “Industrial”:A rough guide to the economics

Stephen Tunnicliffe Wilson Inca Digital Printers



What has limited inkjet's success in industry?

Commercial reasons:

• Print cost ($/m2) – generally higher than conventional print

• Machine cost – higher for same throughput as conventional printers

Technical reasons:

• Print Quality – has previously been lower than conventional printing

• Reliability – particularly nozzle lifetime

But these are related to the same issue – what are the economics of inkjet print compared to conventional print including all factors?

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How do you calculate the print cost of inkjet?

The obvious factors:

• Ink cost – typically $100/kg for 1 ton/year usage

• Ink laydown – typically 10g/m2/colour, 15g/m2 total (UV ink)

..so ~$1.5/m2 print cost is ink.

• Throughput value – e.g. ~$2000/m2/hr for Inca Onset

..so 4000 hours / year at 20% amortisation adds $0.1/m2

The less obvious:

• Cost of replacing nozzles

• Cost of ink performance

• Indirect cost savings, and value-added

An accurate estimate of print cost must consider all of these!

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How does nozzle cost affect inkjet print cost?

Example:

If replacement heads cost $5/nozzle..

..and a printer with 100,000 nozzles replaces 1000 nozzles/year (1%) costing $5000

..and uses 5 tons (5000kg) ink per year

..then this adds $1/kg (or litre) cost which is $0.01/m2

For a 15 nanograms (or picolitres) nozzle drop mass this equates to a nozzle life-time of around 300 Billion drops.

But a printer with poor nozzle maintenance and no nozzle redundancy might achieve less than 1% of this life time, so the nozzle cost could be greater than the ink cost in print cost terms.

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How does the ink performance affect inkjet print cost?

Pigments

• Light coloured inks increase print costs but can reduce image noise

• Spot colours use less ink but require more print heads

Gloss level

• A Matte finish means lower optical density as less light goes through the pigment than with a Gloss finish

• A rough surface can reduce gloss and optical density but may improve adhesion due to increased surface area. A gloss coating can fix this.

Substrate porosity

• If the substrate absorbs more ink then you see less of it.

Ink is priced by the kilogram but valued in Optical Density!

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How does inkjet save cost indirectly?

• Reduced wastage during set-up. For example, an offset press might use 100 sheets to achieve acceptable registration, which could cost $1000.

• Lower cost logistics, by printing jobs pre-collated for shipping, allowing earlier deliveries of distant orders with reduced collation labour costs.

• Use of lighter, lower cost materials. This effectively reduces the inkjet print cost compared to conventional printing. For example, saving 100g/m2 of paper weight at $1200/1000kg saves $0.12/m2.

• Reduced “SKU-cost”. Conventional printing encourages the accumulation of large stocks of printed material. This incurs costs due to storage and recycling of unused/obsolete stock.

• Greater efficiency on your conventional printer. Moving short runs to inkjet allows your conventional printer to focus on long runs.

These potential cost-savings require careful analysis.

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How does inkjet add value over conventional printing?

• Reduced time to market – responding quickly to competition without make-ready delays

• Better consistency – inkjet is more predictable and can more easily adapt to substrate changes

• Simpler workflow – can proof jobs on the printer itself to ensure colour accuracy

• Greater adaptability – images can constantly vary or even stretch to fit

These advantages can increase the price achieved by inkjet print compared to conventional

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What are the costs of poor reliability?

• Down-time can be managed if it's predictable – e.g. Weekly maintenance, typically $1000/hour for a 500m2/hr printer

• But unplanned downtime is more expensive as it forces work to be re-scheduled or even subcontracted – at often double the cost

• Breakdowns can stop the whole manufacturing / converting line, e.g. > $10,000/hour for a box maker

Industrial inkjet must deliver high reliability and an ability to keep running (even if slowly) when minor issues occur

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How can we reduce the costs of poor reliability?

• Increase MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) – ensuring the printer breaks down as rarely as possible

• Improve RFR (Remote Fix Ratio) – the proportion of repairs which don't require a Service Engineer visit – saving time and money

• Reduce MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) – how fast the printer can return to production following a Breakdown

Reducing reliability costs requires good remote diagnostics and enough service engineers and spare parts availability to minimise delays to repairs.

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How do we measure the printer's performance?

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is calculated from:

• Loading – the proportion of calendar time scheduled for production. i.e. weekly shift hours / elapsed hours

• Availability – the proportion of scheduled time the printer could run. i.e. accounting for both planned and unplanned downtime. This includes machine job changes, print head maintenance etc.

• Performance – the proportion of throughput achieved compared to the the printer specification. i.e. % of maximum m/min or m2/hour

• Quality – the proportion of usable printed product - i.e. (100% - the % reject rate)

OEE = Loading x Availability x Performance x Quality.

The real value of an inkjet printer depends on all these criteria!

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Where is inkjet cheaper than conventional print?

An estimate of run lengths shows where to look in more detail..

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How can you make your inkjet economics work?

• Understand the true costs of your conventional print, including wastage, logistics, materials and SKU-cost.

• Investigate the costs and hidden value of the inkjet alternative.

• Find an ink which really works and an integrator with proven ability.

If you want to discuss inkjet economics in more detail, please visit Inca on stand D41!

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