No doubt about it. Printers order up more spot-color paste ink than they use. That costs money and creates waste. Now an equipment manufacturer and an ink company have teamed up to fix that, and to give printers of all sizes a cost-effective way to go a little greener.
It will come as no surprise to readers of this blog that one of the best ways to green-up a printing facility (and to eliminate countless disposal issues) is to prevent waste from being created in the first place. But when it comes to blended paste ink, that has been easier said than done.
A quick glance at the surplus-ink shelf at a commercial printing facility will tell you that considerably more spot-color ink is ordered (or blended in house) than is used. Some of this is the result of pragmatism – nobody wants to run out of ink in the middle of a job. And some of the surplus is due to the fact that spot colors are sold in standard-unit cans and kits that are not right-sized to the print run.
Illinois-based
GFI Innovations, in a program with
Sun Chemical, is making it possible for printers of all sizes to cut their ink inventories – and ink waste – with the installation of GFI’s automated Mx12 Ink Formulation Dispenser.
The Mx12 formulates and dispenses spot colors automatically, using Sun Chemical’s SmartColour™ Global Shade Library – a database of formulas for more than 100,000 ink colors. To make any color in the database, the machine blends ink from a rotating tray of 18 base-color cartridges, with a color accuracy of .001/lb., according to GFI. Formulas for custom colors also can be readily obtained by uploading spectrophotometer readings to Sun Chemical’s secure website or by sending a sample of the color to be matched directly to a Sun Chemical branch – in either case, the ink manufacturer will email back the custom formula to be entered into the database.
The process takes, on average, about one minute per pound of blended ink, and batches can be right-sized in 1/8 pound increments. According to GFI, all of this translates into less wasted ink, better control, faster turnarounds, and cost savings of upwards of 40%, based on the cost of purchased blended inks.
And here’s the kicker – under the Sun Chemical program, printers don’t have to purchase the Mx12 (which rings the till at about $50,000). Instead, with an agreement for their annual ink business, Sun Chemical will install a GFI Mx12 dispenser and a GFI MxM-1 blade mixer at a print facility at no charge. (Sun Chemical representatives have all the details, including the User Agreement and printer responsibilities.)
So far, nearly 40 print facilities have taken Sun Chemical up on the Mx12 program. If the ink-purchase commitment numbers pencil out, it certainly seems like a great way for a printing facility to streamline production, reduce costs, and prevent waste.
