As competition increases for Print Service Providers (PSPs) and environmental regulations become more stringent, the price of ink, plates, paper, film, and other pressroom consumables continue to rise, creating a perfect storm.
As a result of raw material price increases, many major manufacturers like Sun Chemical, Flint Group, Siegwerk, and BASF have recently increased the price of their ink, and unfortunately, as editor of Ink World Magazine David Savastano noted in his article "Price Increases and the Ink Industry," these increases aren't likely to slow down anytime soon. But when an industry is faced with challenges, it forces its leaders and experts to evaluate how to respond; Kodak's new savings-driven cloud service has arrived at just the right time.
Designed to reduce manufacturing costs and increase efficiency for commercial and packaging printers, KODAK's Ink & Plate Usage service ensures printers can operate in today's climate and still improve their top-line growth. The Ink & Plate Usage service positively affects both short- and long-term goals, providing revenue returns today and into the future. PSPs will see immediate value in the reduced time it takes to predict or estimate ink usage. Automation provided by the Ink & Plate Usage service not only speeds time to prepare quotes, but makes job quotes more accurate, maximizing opportunities for immediate revenue results.
Kodak's proprietary predictive modeling then provides long-term savings through macro and micro level business insights uncovered through data analytics. The Ink & Plate Usage service utilizes cutting-edge technology from Microsoft to collect, store, and analyze large amounts of production data from manufacturing operations in near-real time. It allows commercial offset and packaging printers to see and understand consumable usage costs across an entire organization and analyze usage data down to an individual job to minimize carrying costs and maintain profit margins.
This allows you to base your business and labor planning, job quoting, and consumable purchasing decisions on your own historical and predictive usage data. This ability to monitor results by plant, press, product, or job helps you uncover business insights quickly and meet your customers' requirements while reducing manufacturing costs.
For years, there has been a need within the industry to improve results when estimating or forecasting usage of consumables in the pressroom. Today's rising cost of ink and the impact on the bottom line is evidence that Kodak's Ink & Plate Usage service has arrived when the print industry needs it most.