Investing in digital printing — five factors to evaluate.

Deciding when to invest in new technology can be a challenge. The multitude of factors to consider transcends cost, as market pressures may drive timing. Considering an investment in digital manufacturing technologies prompts the question: is now the right time to invest? Invest too early, and you are on the proverbial “bleeding edge,” where the market or the technology is not ready, or simply doesn’t provide the expected return on investment. Invest too late, and you risk being outflanked by competition or sidelined by a shift to new business models in the marketplace.

Our goal is to provide insight into that question — is now the right time to invest in digital inkjet technology for packaging and industrial applications? Rather than arriving at a yes-or-no answer, we examine the factors to consider when making the decision. No two manufacturers face the same issues or have the same opportunities. Each situation is different, so investing requires a review of some important factors: Does moving to inkjet add value? Will current technology soon be outdated? We offer five areas to consider when evaluating investments in digital printing.

1. Technology advancements

Industrial inkjet technology advanced from early applications for direct mail, packaging, and graphic display into extensive use in single-pass, high-speed production onto paper, plastics, corrugated board, and textiles. Print speeds reached beyond 100 linear meters per minute. With advancements in direct-to-shape and direct-to-object industrial and packaging applications, some systems reach more than 60,000 pieces per hour.

As inkjet adoption spread at different rates within different market segments, technological advancements grew. Expanded use of color created demand for new inks, as well as the ability to change colors easily and quickly — giving rise to customized solutions. Early successes paved the way for expansion into more printing and decoration segments, leading to the advanced technologies introduced in recent years. The ability to print on various materials using more sophisticated inks and print heads accompanied the growth of digital printing.

Bottom line: Based on advances in technology, manufacturers should feel confident that exploring digital industrial printing can help them meet today’s demands.

2. Efficiencies in production

Advancements in digital technology have led to efficiencies in production for almost every manufacturer. A few of the benefits brought on by converting to digital product-marking:

• Short-run printing can be profitable. With ever-increasing demand for JIT inventory and lean manufacturing, digital printing and decoration enables even the smallest batch production to be profitable, by reducing the number of steps needed to prepare for a run.
• Reduced job turnarounds and changeovers mean more jobs per shift. With the elimination of platemaking and makeready time, digital printing and decoration saves over 95 percent of the setup time — and all product waste — versus conventional print methods.
• Personalization, serialization, customization. Industrial inkjet is an enabler to address the ever-increasing market demand for adding personalization, serialization, security, track-and-trace, and other customizations to the printed product.

Bottom line: The cost of moving to digital printing is in most cases offset by the greater efficiencies in production.

3. Greater flexibility in design

Branding, promotion, and consumer expectations require significant increases in the use of color — and the number of colors — in designs across all market segments: print, web, advertising, packaging, and often the products themselves. Greater flexibility in color and design is both easier and more cost-effective with industrial inkjet than with conventional print and decoration methods. With today’s inkjet technology, over 85 percent of Pantone® colors are achievable with printing using only four colors.

Industrial inkjet also enables design to stay in an RGB color space through to final print production. The once-separated color workflows for printing CMYK plus spot colors are colliding with the RGB design world of the internet and mobile applications. Industrial inkjet helps enable greater design flexibility and color consistency across all platforms.

Bottom line: Manufacturers adopting digital inkjet solutions gain the ability to serve more clients and meet increasing demands for higher graphic needs.

4. Affordable costs and positive ROIs

With advances in digital inkjet technology, costs are now competitive — meaning the price of entry has been significantly reduced. While upfront capital costs can be high compared to alternate product-marking methods, the ROI can be viewed on four levels:

• First: What is the cost simply to remain competitive?
• Second: Can your firm survive if your competitors are moving to industrial inkjet?
• Third: What is the competitive gain offered by digital printing?
• Fourth: Can your products move ahead of competitors by implementing digital printing?

Capital equipment cost is not the only factor in evaluating the ROI of implementing industrial inkjet. Ongoing production costs and operational expenses often favor implementation. The inks and fluids used in inkjet technology have normalized in recent years, enabling per-piece production costs to be the same as — or lower than — conventional print methods. Inkjet product-marking usually requires less labor, produces little to no waste, has lower service costs, and needs a smaller operational footprint than conventional print and decoration methods.

Bottom line: Digital technology is no longer in the early stages of development. It is now proven and quickly expanding into more applications such as packaging and industrial projects. A clearly defined ROI is now much easier to create.

5. Disruptive business models

Often, digital technology is implemented simply for better efficiency of a current process. But the implementation of digital technology as part of a new and disruptive business model is becoming more prevalent. The introduction of new digital technology into a manufacturing process can often result in a new product or added capabilities, and — in an increasing number of cases — a change to the supply chain or the route to market. Common drivers include on-demand customized products, web-based ordering with fast production turnaround, easier private labeling, and small-batch production.

Digital business-model changes have been common and profitable in many segments of the printing industry. Some, such as in home décor, have seen a dramatic impact on design and purchasing expectations.

Bottom line: Digital printing may go beyond a stage in manufacturing to become part of a greater change in total business processes.

The bottom line

So the question is not “Is now the right time?” The right question is “How and when do we invest to gain the maximum ROI?”

There is a solid confluence of market drivers in favor of adopting industrial inkjet, and the technology has reached an advanced state of performance at an affordable cost. Waiting may not produce any benefits. Our experience is that the decision is more a matter of:

• How can we learn more detailed information, and what else needs to be factored in?
• Will an “off-the-shelf” equipment model work with some modification, or will your application need a custom design?
• Can we build an ROI model that verifies the right technology and performance with a realistic production cost?
• How can we manage a project and implement a system into production?

Whether through Engineered Printing Solutions, in-house staff, or industry consultants, answering these questions requires knowledgeable and experienced professionals who have proven their ability to analyze, design, develop, and implement new technologies and business models. Long-time independent inkjet industry consultants and systems-integration companies can help you quickly sort through the options, make a truly educated decision, and develop a path forward at the right time.

We can help

Engineered Printing Solutions is a leader in designing, building, and providing solutions for industrial printing applications, for companies seeking to improve their products through more efficient processes. EPS offers expertise across a wide variety of situations — digital inkjet, pad printing, and fully automated printers. By focusing on improving your products, we provide services and innovative, dependable products. Our services include:

• Standard and customized inkjet and pad printing equipment
• Custom fixturing and tooling, engineering, and production
• Customized parts feeders, automation, and post-print handling
• Customized pad design and production
• Ink color matching
• Ink adhesion testing
• Expanded graphic arts and plates department
• Expert technical support