Is Inkjet in Your Future?

If you’re considering an inkjet press, your analysis should begin with identifying the work that you will produce with the new press. As noted in an article in a recent Printing Industries Association of Southern California newsletter, printers should not focus on costs, but should ask themselves whether they are looking at short run color, transactional B&W, variable data or a mix of all three?

"We then need a realistic projection of the volume of work and the price that would command remembering that this is an exercise in value identification, not cost accounting," notes the article. "Variable data or specialized short run color creates new marketing power for the client, and we should get paid for it. Once we have a reasonable revenue projection, we can subtract the cost of paper, ink and consumables to identify contribution to overhead.

"When we know this, we can see if the capital cost is justified for which discounted cash flow analysis is useful. But, a good rule of thumb is that the capital cost should not be more than three times the annual contribution to overhead."