East Dorset, October 18#&8212;Engineered Printing Solutions (EPS) donated $2,000 to the Manchester Machine Makers, a local robotics team, as part of its continuing support of the group. Isaac Vernon and Charlotte Ruley, both students at Burr & Burton Academy in Manchester, stopped by to receive a check and take a tour of our facility.

EPS’ Julie Glover presents a check to Isaac Vernon and Charlotte Ruley, president and vice president of the Manchester Machine Makers.

EPS has been supporting the team for several years now. In addition to financial support, EPS will conduct an engineering review of their robot, and EPS employee Randy Marsh will teach team members in the use of SolidWorks, a solid modeling computer-aided design and computer-aided engineering computer program.  EPS will also provide support for software programming and fabrication of the robot, and is also hoping to offer an internship to one of the Makers next summer.

The team is a chartered 4-H Club by UVM Extension, and recruits team members in grades 7-12 from all schools in the Manchester area.  They are always open to having new members join the team.  Engineered Printing Solutions is proud to help develop the workforce of tomorrow. You can read more about the Manchester Machine Makers on their blog: https://manchestermachinemakers.org/blog/

When I tell people that Engineered Printing Solutions builds printing equipment, I usually see a look cross their face as they picture huge offset printing presses with enormous rolls of paper flying through them, like those scenes out of a movie from the golden era of Hollywood that end with a spinning newspaper boldly trumpeting a sensational headline. When I explain that we make printers that print on everything BUT paper, people usually get a confused look on their face. Then I point out the speedometer dial in their car, the branding and instructions on the front panel of their washing machine, or the logo of their favorite football team on the glass they are drinking out of, and I explain that what we specialize in is building “direct-to-object” printing equipment.

Wait, What Is “Direct-to-Object” Printing?

Golf ball printed on a Cylindrical Inkjet Printer

Golf ball printed on a Cylindrical Inkjet Printer

Direct-to-object printing is just what the term implies: printing branding or other decoration directly on three-dimensional objects—everything from drinkware to disc brake rotors to packaging for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG). More traditional methods of decorating usually focused on printing labels (or, more recently, heat-shrink sleeves in the case of many consumer packaged goods) which were then applied to the product.

Cell phone cover printed on a uv led curable flatbed inkjet printer.

Flat objects such as this cellphone cover present fewer challenges than more 3D shapes.

It should be noted that direct-to-object (DTO) printing is also sometimes referred to as “direct-to-shape” printing. Some people use the term “direct-to-shape” to refer specifically to objects or parts that must be rotated or moved in order to mark all sides of a 3D part, though most people use the terms “direct-to-object” and “direct-to-shape” interchangeably.

Benefits of Direct-to-Object Printing

Direct-to-object printing has several advantages over traditional methods of product-decoration. First and foremost is the elimination of the need to maintain a sufficient inventory of labels (usually printed by a third-party vendor) to prevent production bottlenecks. The addition of labelling machines and label inventories typically requires a greater factory-floor footprint than DTO methods of part-decoration.

By eliminating the dependency on a third-party label supplier, brand owners can rapidly prototype designs, resulting in faster time-to-market for products. Indeed, the rapid changeovers that direct-to-object industrial inkjet printers facilitate not only result in fast prototyping, but they also make extremely short runs economically viable. This opens up a world of possibilities for personalization of products, including versioning and customizing for seasonal and regional variation. Direct-to-object inkjet printers also allow manufacturers to maintain leaner inventories of their products themselves, as they can maintain inventories of semi-finished goods, marking and decorating them “just-in-time” in response to fluctuations in demand along regional or seasonal lines. Leaner inventories also mean less waste of scrap product and unsold inventory.

Finally, direct-to-object industrial inkjet printers such as the ones we build tend to be more environmentally friendly than other methods of product-decoration. Because our direct-to-object printers use solvent-free UV inks and drop-on-demand technology, only enough ink is jetted to mark the part, resulting in very little wasted ink. UV-LED lamps instantly cure the ink to the part, providing durable decoration free from migration and resistant to scratching, peeling, or flaking.  Further, the elimination of printing plates and extensive make-ready at the beginning of print runs also contributes to overall savings.

Challenges of Direct-To-Object Printing

Direct-to-Object Printing Equipment: It’s What We Do!

Parts such as this hard hat present a greater challenge, but this helmet was printed on a single pass inkjet printer built by EPS. We have built several hard hat printing solutions over the years.

Direct-to-object printing is not without its challenges, particularly with single pass inkjet printers. Inherently, jetting all the ink necessary in a single pass—hence the name—to create complex designs with subtle gradients and photorealistic imagery on a three-dimensional object moving through space introduces unique challenges. These include, but are not limited to, wind turbulence generated by the movement of the part, the necessity for consistent transport and precise drop placement accuracy.  

While the usual solution to this problem is to place the print heads as close to the part as possible (ideally no more than 10mm), most industrial parts have topographical relief in excess of that. At line speeds up to 50 inches per second and higher, ink chemistry and the physical properties of the ink, such as viscosity and shear, must be known and precisely calibrated. For proper adhesion to occur, the surface tension of the substrate must be less than the surface energy of the ink, and to achieve this inline plasma pretreatment is often necessary.  

Where a white base layer is applied prior to other colors, UV-LED lamps must instantly “pin” the white ink so that the colors laid down on top do not blend with it. Finally, dedicated software must take into account the precise topography of the part to be printed in order to subtly alter the 2D image to conform to the 3D part and avoid distortion.

More Information on Direct-To-Object Printing

Want to learn more about DTO printing? Download a free copy of our White Paper DIRECT-TO-OBJECT DIGITAL DECORATION: Practical Considerations to find out more.

Download Free White Paper

Or just drop us a line using the form below:

Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
This will enable us to direct your inquiry to the appropriate Sales Engineer.
Click or drag files to this area to upload.You can upload up to 3 files.
Upload an image file (optional)
Note: Under no circumstances will we sell, share or otherwise distribute your data outside EPS.

We have written in the past about the importance of finding the bottleneck and how seconds matter in any production process.  Time truly is money, and today we would like to walk through a sample ROI calculation one typically encounters when considering moving from an analog method of product-decoration such as pad printing, silk-screening, or in-mold labelling to digital inkjet product-decoration.

The numbers we will use are merely illustrative.  Thankfully, the price of the part to be decorated is irrelevant.  All that matters is the opportunity cost—the cost of the next-best alternative, which can be assumed to be the current method of product decoration.  Since we also build pad print machines, we will examine this alternative method of product decoration most closely, but screen-printing costs will also be considered.

Let’s start with a few assumptions.  Assume that the profit from each unit using your current method of product-marking is $1.  Assume further that your unit profit using a high-speed single pass inkjet printer is three dollars.

These are reasonable assumptions for several reasons.  First of all, there is little to no ink waste in industrial inkjet printing, as the ink system recirculates ink that is not used, and there is no waste from leftover ink in ink cups as there is with pad printing.  There are also no clichés to purchase or make and store.

So unit costs can be lower.  But what about the revenue side? The second reason why it is reasonable to assume higher unit profit is that industrial inkjet printers can produce premium effects, whether through greyscale printing to produce subtle gradients, or using High Laydown Technology to produce a pleasing tactile finish.  Industrial inkjet printers are also capable of variable data printing, enabling individual customization at a mass scale and justifying a premium price.  Finally, industrial inkjet printers can use variable data printing capabilities to ensure the authenticity and purity of products through batch-coding and other anti-counterfeiting methods.  This can not only cut down on costs from product-diversion and lost sales, but guarantees of authenticity further justify a price premium.

Now imagine being able to do all that, but faster.  Assume that using current methods, a facility is able to produce 800 units per hour.  This facility is considering investing in a single pass inkjet printer, which will be capable of decorating 1200 parts per hour.  What would be the return on investment?

Using current machinery, the company is generating $800 in profit per hour.  With a throughput of roughly 18 inches per second, our XD70 single pass inkjet printer is capable of generating $3600 in profit per hour in this scenario.  In a forty-hour work week, the single pass machine would generate $112,000 in additional profit every week, or $5.6 million annually.

There are other sources of positive return as well.  As mentioned, there are no clichés, pads, or ink cups to store, so less warehouse space is necessary.  There may be some salvage value in existing machinery.  Labor costs associated with making clichés (or buying them) are also foregone.  Finally, with minimal automation such as part load/unload, a single operator could operate more than one machine, something that is harder to do with multiple pad print or screen print machines.

There are of course many other challenges to industrial inkjet product decoration, with part topology and substrate composition being the chief ones.  With  new polymers being invented each day, getting ink to stick to parts—and stick where you want it—while they move quickly past a print array remains a technical challenge, as variable drop sizes have different trajectories, some parts have nooks and crannies that are hard to hit with ink, and even the movement of the part can create wind turbulence that affects droplet trajectory.

That is why it always pays to partner with a company with a proven track record of building product-marking machines, a company that knows inks, substrates, and innovative part-handling solutions.  (You can read more about choosing the right industrial inkjet printer here.)  But many customers are surprised at how quickly even complex high-speed single pass printers can pay for themselves.

Seconds matter!

Want to learn more about how seconds matter? Drop us a line!

Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
This will enable us to direct your inquiry to the appropriate Sales Engineer.
Click or drag files to this area to upload.You can upload up to 3 files.
Upload an image file (optional)
Note: Under no circumstances will we sell, share or otherwise distribute your data outside EPS.

Manufacturers in the US have been re-examining their global supply chains for years, and the Covid-19 pandemic only accelerated this trend. As long ago as 2018, Industry Week reported that reshowing had increased 38 percent year-over-year due to rising foreign wages and increased tariffs. In 2020, factory shutdowns, port closures, and shipping disruptions caused by the Ever Given in the Suez Canal all contributed to companies’ desire to shorten supply chains and bring some secondary operations such as late-stage product-marking and -decoration in-house.

Among our customers old and new, we have seen the restoring phenomenon up close. Indeed, for many companies, we have helped with the process. By bringing digital product-decoration in-house, companies find that they can keep leaner inventories while increasing their manufacturing flexibility, as late-stage decoration can take place after the product is already sold. With virtually no make-ready to worry about, since there are no screens, clichés, or inks to change over in digital product-decoration, machine downtime is dramatically reduced, and extremely short runs become economical.

ROI is Key

One customer of ours bought a highly-complex pad printing system, with optical image alignment, an elliptical conveyor, 18 pads, and inline post-cure. The total price of the equipment approached three-quarters of a million dollars, but the customer reports that the machine paid for itself in twelve days of production.

As with any go/no-go decision regarding capital expenditures, when purchasing product-marking equipment to bring that process in-house, the payback period must be a reasonable one. Many of our customers are astonished when we demonstrate how quickly an investment in product-marking equipment can pay for itself, whether it is a digital process or an analog one. One customer of ours bought a highly-complex pad printing system, with optical image alignment, an elliptical conveyor, 18 pads, and inline post-cure. The total price of the equipment approached three-quarters of a million dollars, but the customer reports that the machine paid for itself in twelve days of production. Currently, we are building a second machine for this company, with two more slated for manufacture in the coming year.

This company has approached Engineered Printing Solutions again and again for product-marking solutions because they know that we build machines that not only get the job done, but that also allow companies to offer shorter runs, more variety, and less time to market—all of which goes directly to their bottom line. Interestingly, the company mentioned above has made the conversion to digital; the next few machines we are building for them will be industrial inkjet.

Engineered Printing Solutions Can Help You Find That ROI

Is your company considering bringing product-decoration in-house? Or perhaps you already decorate parts and are looking for a way to increase the breadth of your product offering, whether by increasing the number of SKUs you offer, or else by offering shorter runs than your competition. Either way, drop us a line—you might be astonished at how quickly that investment can pay for itself.

Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
This will enable us to direct your inquiry to the appropriate Sales Engineer.
Click or drag files to this area to upload.You can upload up to 3 files.
Upload an image file (optional)
Note: Under no circumstances will we sell, share or otherwise distribute your data outside EPS.

East Dorset, VT (April 19, 2021)

Starting today, Todd Murphy has joined Engineered Printing Solutions as President. Todd has over 30 years’ experience in the international inkjet/print industry. Most recently he served as the Digital Solutions Sales Manager for Agfa Graphics, managing an upper Midwest region based out of the Kansas City area. Previously he has held multiple key management positions for Canon Solutions America Inc, Fujifilm North America Corp and Sericol Inc who were acquired by Fujifilm. Todd started and lead the J-Press group for Fujifilm which focused on single-pass inkjet technologies for the commercial print market. Originally from Duluth, Minnesota, Todd lived in Kansas City before relocating to Vermont with his wife.

EPS’ Midwest Sales Engineer Ken Tyler recently sat down with Deborah Corn and Pat McGrew of The Print Report to talk a little bit about direct-to-object part-decoration.

Today on The Print Report: Direct-to-Object, is it becoming a bigger thing? And how do you actually make it happen?  It takes the right skills and the right innovation to design and manage meaningful print marketing solutions. Welcome to Podcasts from the Printerverse, where we explore all facets of print and marketing creates stellar communications and sales opportunities for business and success. Now here’s your host: the intergalactic ambassador from the Printerverse.  Listen long and prosper!

Schedule your own consultation with one of our Sales Engineers:

Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
This will enable us to direct your inquiry to the appropriate Sales Engineer.
Click or drag files to this area to upload.You can upload up to 3 files.
Upload an image file (optional)
Note: Under no circumstances will we sell, share or otherwise distribute your data outside EPS.

On March 13, 2021. the Manchester Machine Makers robotics team was recognized with First Place for the Think Award at the Vermont State Championships for FIRST Tech Challenge.     About 30 teams competed at the event, coming from across Vermont, and from several states beyond (teams list:  Vermont FTC Registration | The University of Vermont (uvm.edu))

The Think Award is one of seven judged awards that were presented at the event, and primarily focuses on the team’s use of math and science to drive its engineering design process (I’m including a complete description of the award below).   Math and science-driven design is a strong suit for our team — at last year’s Vermont State Championship (the team’s rookie year), we were recognized with second place for the same award.

This year’s team members are Charlotte Ruley and Taylor Jarvis (both 11th grade at BBA), Isaac Vernon (9th grade at BBA), Aleks Rutins (8th grade at The Dorset School), and Jason Giedja (7th grade at Long Trail School).  The team’s coaches this year are Mike Cole and Meg Ruley, and its mentors are Bob Ruley and Patty Rutins.

The team is a chartered 4-H Club by UVM Extension, and recruits team members in grades 7-12 from all schools in the Manchester area.  They are always open to having new members join the team.  Engineered is proud to sponsor the makers of tomorrow.

Here’s how you can help the Manchester Machine Makers:

YouTube player

FIRST Tech Challenge

Think Award 

Removing engineering obstacles through creative thinking. 

This judged award is given to the Team that best reflects the journey the Team took as they experienced the engineering design process during the build season. The engineering content within the portfolio is the key reference for Judges to help identify the most deserving Team. The Team’s engineering content must focus on the design and build stage of the Team’s Robot.

Additional detailed information that is helpful for the Judges would be in the team’s Engineering Notebook and would include descriptions of the underlying science and mathematics of the Robot design and game strategies, the designs, redesigns, successes, and opportunities for improvement. A Team is not a candidate for this award if their portfolio does not include engineering content.

Required criteria for the Think Award: 

  • Team shows respect and Gracious Professionalism® to everyone they meet at a FIRST Tech Challenge event.
  • Engineering portfolio must have engineering content. The engineering content could include entries describing examples of the underlying science, mathematics, and game strategies in a summary fashion.
  • The engineering portfolio must provide examples that show the Team has a clear understanding of the engineering design process including examples of lessons learned.
  • The portfolio should inspire the judges to want to see the detailed engineering content in the engineering notebook.
  • Portfolio format is less important but enables the judges to understand the team’s design maturity, organizational capabilities and overall team structure.
  • Portfolio could reference specific experiences and lessons learned but should capture the summary of the current status of the Team and their robot design.
  • Portfolio could also summarize experiences and lessons learned from outreach with concise tables of outcomes

Strongly suggested criteria for the Think Award: 

  • Teams should flag or provide a reference to 6 to 8 pages of the engineering notebook(s) to support the engineering content included in the engineering portfolio.
  • Engineering portfolio could summarize how the Team acquired new mentors or acquired new knowledge and expertise from their mentors.
  • Engineering portfolio could contain summary of overall Team plan.
  • Engineering portfolio could contain information about the plans to develop skills for Team members.

America has a throughput problem.  How to stick over 600 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine into arms as quickly as possible?

We have written in the past about the logistical challenges of administering the COVID-19 vaccine to the US population—the challenges of manufacturing the vaccines and distributing them.  This is a classic throughput problem, so let’s take the same approach to the problem as we do when trying to shave seconds off of a print cycle. (See “Seconds Matter.”)  Simply put: find the bottleneck.

Find The Bottleneck

Production bottlenecks can have you singing the blues too.

On Friday, February 12, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found and removed one such bottleneck in the supply-chain for the COVID-19 vaccine.  In this instance, the bottleneck was quite literally the bottle, or rather, the number of doses per vial.  The FDA granted approval for Moderna to package 14 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine into each vial instead of ten.  Since Moderna supplies half of all vaccines in the US, this simple ruling increased the national vaccine supply by 20 percent, without requiring any changes at any stage of the supply chain.  No new lines were added; no new tooling was required to accommodate larger vials.

The objective in bottleneck-hunting is increased efficiency, as one could easily double throughput by doubling inputs, from raw materials to labor and machinery.  But this also doubles cost, and companies like the rest of us live in a world of constraints, whether they be financial or simply factory floor space.  Finding and removing the bottleneck should initially result in increased output using the same level of inputs.

This is the goal of our Sales Engineers whenever a customer brings a direct-to-shape printing challenge to us and asks, “How can I do this faster?”  Frequently, as we have seen, precious seconds can be found in upstream activities such as part-loading.  (See one such solution here.)  Alternatively, perhaps it is the pretreatment subroutine.  Part-unloading activities may also be the bottleneck.

With our single pass inkjet printers and automated pad printers, we sell machines that can mark thousands of parts per hour.  Generally the bottleneck lies elsewhere.  That’s why we are so much more than a manufacturer of industrial printers.  We also offer a complete line of ancillary products such as inline pretreatment, mechanical aggregators such as waterfall hoppers and racetrack feeders, servo-controlled fixtures, and robotic load/unload.

Have you got a throughput problem? Drop us a line today, and one of our Sales Engineers would be happy to discuss it with you.  At Engineered Printing Solutions, we have helped companies in industries as diverse as automotive, medical device and drinkware find and create value and develop new products.  Let us do the same for you.

Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
This will enable us to direct your inquiry to the appropriate Sales Engineer.
Click or drag files to this area to upload.You can upload up to 3 files.
Upload an image file (optional)
Note: Under no circumstances will we sell, share or otherwise distribute your data outside EPS.

Case Study: Hodges Badge Company Converts to Cold-Foil PrintingFor over 100 years, Hodges Badge Company has been a family-owned and operated business selling awards, ribbons, and rosettes for every occasion, from dog shows to academic and sporting events to corporate awards. Recently, the company approached Engineered Printing Solutions about making the leap from hot-foil stamping production to cold-foil printing. We designed and built a machine for the company, and they haven’t looked back since.

Case Study: Hodges Badge Company Converts to Cold-Foil Printing

Rick Hodges, President, Hodges Badge Company

We have written in the past about the advantages of cold-foil printing over hot-foil stamping, but Rick Hodges, president of the company, summarized the benefits in a recent phone call. “With no dies to make, our lead times went from two days to two hours”. In addition, the quality of their designs went up, as the company was able to produce finer lines than they could with hot-stamping, which sometimes produces “bridging” between two lines when excess foil is applied. This is not a problem with cold-foil printing, said Hodges. Hodges also cited the cost-savings of not having to warehouse dies for future use as an additional benefit of going the cold-foil printing route.

Converting from traditional production methods to cutting-edge cold-foil printing is not without its challenges however, warned Hodges. “There is a bit of a learning curve, as digital inkjet printing requires a completely different skillset than traditional tool-and-die manufacturing,” he noted. Hodges credited EPS’ after-sales service and support for getting the badge company up to speed.

And speed is what attracted Hodges to the idea of cold-foil printing in the first place. The speed-to-market advantage of cold-foil printed products over conventionally-produced products means that there are whole new markets that Hodges Badge Company can serve that simply aren’t economically feasible using conventional methods with their tooling costs. Variable-data products and runs-of-one become viable options using cold-foil printing.

Hodges intends to hold on to its first-mover advantage when it comes to cold-foil printing. “None of my competition can match the quality, variety, and speed-to-market of our products,” he said, and he doesn’t foresee that changing any time soon.

Do you need award ribbons, medals, trophies, or other memorabilia? Contact Hodges Badge Company today. And to learn more about cold-foil printing, drop us a line!

Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
This will enable us to direct your inquiry to the appropriate Sales Engineer.
Click or drag files to this area to upload.You can upload up to 3 files.
Upload an image file (optional)
Note: Under no circumstances will we sell, share or otherwise distribute your data outside EPS.
Case Study: Hodges Badge Company Converts to Cold-Foil Printing

This industrial inkjet printer jets UV-curable adhesive that instantly bonds the cold foil to the substrate.

singlepass-printed mousetrapsMitec Enginy, a Catalan company specializing in the automation of industrial production processes, has collaborated with Engineered Printing Solutions to produce a digital ink jet printing machine to be integrated into their automation. Engineered Printing Solutions’ XD-70 printer will be used to print on wood blocks, giving their customers the quality and flexibility they are looking for.

Mitec chose Engineered Printing Solutions because of our knowledge of digital printing, experience in the industry, and the quality of our machines. Mitec CEO Albert Gratacos said “Engineered Printing Solutions is the unique company that can produce a high speed digital ink jet system and tailor it to our specific needs.” We look forward to our continued work with Mitec Enginy!

Watch these mousetraps being printed at right. You can read more about our collaboration here and here.

Want to find out more about industrial inkjet printing machines? Drop us a line!

Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
This will enable us to direct your inquiry to the appropriate Sales Engineer.
Click or drag files to this area to upload.You can upload up to 3 files.
Upload an image file (optional)
Note: Under no circumstances will we sell, share or otherwise distribute your data outside EPS.