With over 1,000 products, one of my new chemical manufacturing
customers needed a better way to produce labels for their products. Although I can’t use the company name for
competitive reasons, I wanted to share with you their experience beginning to
print using the TrojanOne
label printer.
According to my customer, the co-owner of the company, “over the years,
we looked for ways to eliminate the excessive plate charges. Although the “per label” costs were low, the
plate charges get very expensive; especially when you have more than 1,000
products. Plus the high minimum order quantities associated with preprinted labels means lots of label inventory. We still have in inventory thousands of labels
of some low volume products.”
“Plus, our OEM customers make label changes all the time. We need a way to respond quickly to these
label changes without having to negotiate the costs of obsolete labels” says
the co-owner.
To begin printing on demand, the manufacturer began using a 4 color
thermal transfer printer.
This printer enabled the manufacturer to eliminate the plate charges
and inventory, but it wasn’t the perfect solution. “With the 4 color thermal transfer printer,
we sometimes get ribbon wrinkle which creates colored lines on our labels,”
says the co-owner.
The co-owner continues, “in addition, we sometimes get ink fade, or an
uneven color or image consistency with the prints.”
“Plus, the ribbons get expensive” says the co-owner. At $161 for 1,000 meters of resin ribbon,
their 10.5” labels cost anywhere from $0.04 (one color) to as much as $0.16
(assuming all 4 colors 100% coverage). And with thermal transfer, if you place one dot in the center of the
label, you must use the whole width of the ribbon – mostly waste.
To improve the look and lower the cost of their labels, the company
purchased a TrojanOne printer, Smart Unwinder, Smart Rewinder and Remote
Service System from Color Label Solutions (plus a great and affordable
workbench from Sam’s Club).
The TrojanOne printer
offers high resolution, fast speeds and low ink cost printing. With the integrated Smart Winders, you don’t
have to manually adjust the settings as the printer controls the tension. Overall, you get a system to digitally print
high resolution labels at a fraction of the cost of a digital press.
You might find my earlier posts covering the TrojanOne printer of interest:
In addition to the high-quality printing, I recommend the TrojanOne printer unit specifically for the service and repair capability. According to Brian Jobmann, Chief Technology Officer for
Trojan Color Systems, “we built the TrojanOne printer with service in mind.
First, the printer offers a remote service capability. With Remote Service Module or Trojan Touch
Control panel, we can connect to the printer via secure servers to answer questions and
troubleshoot problems, including editing the firmware code. This capability enables us to resolve 98+% of
the problems our customers encounter.”
“In addition, Trojan built the printer to make it easy to replace the
print engine if service is required,” says Brian. “No
tools are required to remove the print engine; just a couple of connectors and
latches. Other systems can require
complete disassembly to remove the engine. The TrojanOne engine can be
completely changed within 5 minutes for quick uptime.” I believe Trojan
makes it easy to get required service; a very important criteria when deciding
which label printer to purchase.
As a part of the setup and install, Brian worked with my customer on-site
to insure he was fully trained on the Trojan printer. “We find users who go through this training
are very successful and satisfied. If
end users don’t get trained, they
have a more difficult time printing successfully. The system is easy to use, once shown how to use it,”
says Brian. As an experience user of
different label printers, the co-owner setup the printer himself, demonstrating
a high level of technical expertise in the process.
During the training, Brian worked with my customer on the process to
match PMS colors. By adjusting the RGB
colors in Adobe Illustrator and comparing the printouts to a color swatch, my
customer was able to match seemingly perfectly PMS colors in just a couple of
iterations.
After completing the training with Brian, my customer was ready to put
the Trojan printer into their production processes. Personally, I can add that this company was
the perfect customer; experienced with on-demand printing, detailed oriented and willingness to learn
and experiment.
If you have lots of products; want to avoid plate charges, high
purchase minimums, and potential obsolete inventory; and need high resolution
print output, contact Color Label Solutions to discuss how you can put the
TrojanOne label printer to work for you.
Guy Mikel
866-962-7870
#colorlabels
#trojanlabelprinter
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