Do you take your inks for granted? If you do, you are not the only one. Many printers, and not just the small ones, are really only interested in obtaining the cheapest price possible for their inks.
What they do not realise is that they are missing out in a number of areas, both financially and technically. Let’s tackle the economic first, since they are taking on increasing importance, considering there have been two price rises over the last 12 months and more are expected over the coming year. Indeed, it would not be surprising if the total rise over the period does not reach 40% for some inks.
We cannot blame the ink manufacturers for this. To give them their due, they have been absorbing increasing costs for a number of years, to the extent that these days some companies are barely profitable, demonstrated by the recent round of consolidation in the industry.
When a company is not making money, it makes it difficult to continue research and development, and customer service and support tends to suffer, neither of which is good news for the printing industry.
As a result of all this, when the recent significant rises in the price of raw materials occurred, especially for crude oil related materials, ink makers had no option but to pass them on to their customers. Nor is the situation being helped by raw material shortages, particularly of certain pigments, especially following the environmental restrictions which have been imposed on manufacturers by the government in China, which produces significant quantities of pigments, and was started in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing.
Although the ink industry in recent years has significantly reduced it’s operating costs by becoming more efficient, especially through the use of ‘mother plant’ manufacturing, there is no doubt that it is having a hard time. The same is true of the printing industry.
Unfortunately, when this happens, printers tend to go for the cheapest inks possible but they are cutting off their nose to spite their face. To realise this, all they have to do is calculate how much they’ll lose on a job if the ink is not up to scratch.
For example, how much does it cost you per hour to have a press idle while waiting for the ink maker’s technical service people to come along to work out what has gone wrong? Or, how much does it cost to wash down your press and set it up with another ink? Or, what will it cost to have a job refused by a customer due to poor printing?
When you consider that ink represents a very small percentage of the total production cost of a print job, is it really worth penny pinching? More often than not, you will find that any savings made from buying cheapest ink will be more than wiped out by a cost of solving the inevitable problems, even if there is only one occurrence.
This doesn’t not mean though that there is nothing you can do to reduce your ink bills. One way could be to buy all your pressroom consumables including ink from one supplier, something which is increasingly on offer in the industry. In this way, not only might you obtain a better deal and reduce the invoicing but using inks and pressroom consumables which have been developed to work together should reduce the chance of problems occurring. It should also mean that when an ink manufacturer ‘improves’ an ink by changing an ingredient, it does not cause on-press problems.
The second way to reduce ink costs is through good housekeeping. These days, ink makers spend a considerable amount of time and money making sure that the ink arrives at you plant in the best possible condition. If you ensure that it stays that way, the ink will not only run better but it could go further.
Automatic bulk container ink pumping systems can also reduce ink consumption. For one thing, ink spillage is eliminated and for another there is much less ink residue left in the containers compared with using tins. If your operation does not justify such a system, than there ink cartridge systems available which offer similar benefits. They can be cost justified even for sheet-fed printing operations with low ink consumption, especially when frequent colour changes are involved.
Adding Value
Not surprisingly, specialist inks tend to be more expensive than the conventional four process colours but then they offer a greater return on investment. Take, for example, sensory inks and varnishes which can meet designers’ and advertisers’ increasing demands for all round stimulation.
Until recently, these have tended only to be used by ‘specialist’ printers, particularly those in the packaging industry, where brand owners and designers are continually looking for ways to make their packaging more appealing to the consumer’s senses, as well as give a feeling value.
However, as the market becomes increasingly competitive, not just in packaging but in all other industries, such inks are being used by a much wider sector of printers especially as their handling has become that much easier. One example is using scratch and sniff inks in publications, not just magazines but also newspaper.
Technical developments
Overall, technically, ink developments tend to be more evolutionary rather than revolutionary. For instance, as the printing presses, both sheet-fed and web, become ever faster so new inks have been developed by all the major manufacturers to handle the higher speeds.
For more information on image processing or printing in general please don’t hesitate to contact us at The Printing House (Print Buying Direct)
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