How to save money - and the environment
Chambered doctor blades are now a standard specification item on all post printers.
Over the last two generations of equipment the industry has evolved from all rubber
rollers, to 50/50 rubber roller and reverse angle blade, to 100% chambers.
The driver for this has always been print quality, and this remains the overriding,
obvious improvement. However, as chamber systems improve further, the industry have
begun to appreciate the additional benefits that a well specified chamber system
can give over the standard offering, and the subsequent advantage that this can
give to the whole business. These advantages can reduce the cost and workload of
a whole factory, not just the print unit.
Let's start with some basic print facts:
- After capital costs, salaries and board the most expensive item on a print unit is ink.
- Most chamber wash up processes are specified to clean the chamber and anilox, and not maximise ink returns at the end of a job
- On average, 50% of ink purchased is not applied to the board.
- Environmental regulations will continue to get tougher, leading to more equipment and on-cost to deal with this waste stream.
Whilst most production orientated managers would find these points unsurprising,
non industry observers would be shocked to learn that the corrugating industry accepts
this level of waste. Not only is the cost significant, the environmental implications
of this loss of ink are huge.
As a provider of Carbon Fibre Chambers to the Corrugated Industry, Absolute is constantly
being requested to upgrade and improve our product to address developing market
requirements. SCA is one of the biggest corrugators in Europe, and as a major customer
of Absolute, we are working with them to significantly reduce the amount of ink
lost during wash up. This co-operation will improve environmental performance whilst
also reducing ink costs and the subsequent costs of the waste stream.
The 50% loss in ink is significant, but this is merely the initial cost. A large
proportion of this ink is in waste water, and in order to dispose of this, the majority
of plants have ink cleaning (or flocculation) plants. The cost of an average flocculation
plant including maintenance and depreciation is between €50,000 and €75,000
per annum. Ongoing costs for the chemicals to clean the ink are approximately €1.50
per kilo. Once this is all completed, the residual "inert crumb" generally
goes to landfill. This would notionally cost a plant €10,000 per year.
It is clear that these additional costs not only reduce the profit of a plant significantly,
but they also lead to bigger ink stores, bigger flocculation plants (as more waste
ink must be cleaned) and this inevitably leads to higher maintenance of all the
equipment required to ensure that these actions and processes are correctly carried
out.
Clearly, it is not suggested that all ink loss is generated by wash up on chambers,
and therefore chambers cannot be the only answer, however it is a good target as
it is easy and relatively straightforward to quantify the potential savings.
A reasonably utilised print unit with a chamber will have 700 job changes within
1 year. Some chamber systems will waste up to 4.5 kilos of ink per job change, whilst
others that focus on ink loss can reduce this to under 0.5 kilos. On this basis
the figures can be calculated as follows:
|
|
Standard Chamber
|
Absolute IMAX
|
|
Ink loss per change x 700 jobs
|
4.5 kilos 3150.0 kilos
|
0.5 kilos 350.0 kilos
|
|
x €3.5 per kilo
|
€11,025
|
€1,225
|
plus chemicals to clean ink @ €1.50
|
€ 4,725
€15,750 per unit
|
€525
€1,750 per unit
|
|
x average of 20 units per plant
|
€ 315,000
|
€35,000
|
|
Potential saving
|
€ 280,000 per annum
|
|
The next obvious question is "how do we test to see what ink loss we currently
achieve?" Simply follow these basics guidelines:
- Weigh the ink bucket with the ink (without the pump)
- Put the pump in the bucket
- Pump up the chamber for 2 minutes
- If your system adds water, measure this accurately as it is being added!
- Drain the chamber following the agreed procedure of your print team
- Remove the pump and re-weigh the ink bucket and returned ink
- Subtract the weight of added water
- The difference between the two ink weights is the average ink lost during a typical changeover.
By following the test procedure and sharing your results with your colleagues, you
will be able to draw your colleague's attention to the opportunities that this situation
presents. This increased focus has the potential to generate a significant improvement
in the on-costs of your whole plant by focussing on one area, and will make it much
easier to provide a logical and proven justification to improve your current ink
applicator set-up.
In the competitive environment in which we all operate, it is useful to look at
the problem from the consumers' perspective. If the solution our industry provides
can be environmentally better as well as reducing our cost, then we can all benefit
from the progress achieved.
Antony Whiteside - Director
Absolute Engineering
Unit 2B
Park Mill Way
Clayton West
West Yorkshire HD8 9XJ
UK
www.absolute-eng.com