T-Mark’ s Sojet printer helps cut downtime and running costs
T-Mark has secured a new customer in food manufacturing and is helping them improve productivity with Sojet’ s new MoEco 4000 printer. The customer is a wholesaler that provides pre-prepared food products to a high-street restaurant chain.
The company had a 20-year-old thermal inkjet system, which they were looking to replace as it was becoming unreliable. The old-fashioned technology was too complex for their contract workers to use, and the printer consumed lots of ink, making it expensive to run. Frequent changes of ink cartridge also meant high downtime and, due to the complexity of the process, also involved a senior member of staff to supervise the contractors. Limits on the print height provided by their existing machine meant the company had to use preprinted boxes to include certain standard information. This was recognised as an unnecessary expense for a product that was only going to be seen by the restaurant outlets.
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As well as consulting T-Mark, the company looked into a competitor’ s product, but it was several times more expensive than the Chinese engineered Sojet printer.
T-Mark installed Sojet’ s new MoEco 4000 thermal inkjet printer with four printheads and a bulk ink system. With four 12.5mm printheads, this printer provides a total print height of 50mm; double what was available with the old system. The printheads were arranged in pairs to print on the side of the box: two marking 25mm high at the top, and two printheads marking 25mm high at the bottom. Straight away, this configuration eliminated the need for a preprinted box, providing an immediate cost saving. Using the outline font in the message design allowed for lower ink consumption, providing a further saving. Sojet’ s bulk ink system has almost 9 times the volume of ink of a regular 42ml cartridge, but is only 5 times the price. This was another way in which the new Sojet system helped to reduce running costs. The bulk system also meant less downtime changing cartridges.
And the customer is delighted with the result.
“ We have seen improvements all round: improved productivity, a happier team and lower running costs. You can’ t ask for more.”
T-Mark is a subsidiary of Timbermark ID Systems Ltd, an Oxfordshire based company, which has been providing inkjet printers to the timber and packaging industries since 2004.
www. t-mark. co. uk