Diagraph's Blog

When is it time to trade in your continuous inkjet printer?

The expected life of industrial inkjet printers is typically between five and seven years, depending on the production environment. However, harsh environments may further reduce the usable life.

Consider the following questions when evaluating whether to replace your continuous inkjet printer (CIJ):

• Is there high dust?
• Does the temperature in the plant reach high or low extremes?
• Is there heavy humidity?

The impact of these factors can result in a decrease of your CIJ printer’s uptime.

Repair or replace? The risk is downtime.

If your printer has required a repair outside of regularly scheduled maintenance, you should consider this a red flag. It may be in your best interest to replace rather than repair since unplanned downtime can have a significant impact on your profits for the following reasons:

• Lost production time: When a manufacturing plant experiences unscheduled downtime, production comes to a halt. This lost production time can lead to a decrease in output, resulting in lower revenue and profits.

• Increased labor costs: If workers are unable to perform their duties during unscheduled downtime, they may need to be paid for idle time. This can increase labor costs, which further impacts profits.
• Delayed shipments: If unscheduled downtime occurs during a critical production period, it may delay the shipment of finished products. This can lead to dissatisfied customers, lost sales and ultimately, lower profits.
• Increased maintenance costs: If unscheduled downtime occurs frequently, it can lead to increased maintenance costs from repair costs and more frequent preventative maintenance visits to reduce the risk of future downtime.
• Limited parts availability: As equipment gets older, parts for that equipment may become more difficult to find. Manufacturers may discontinue production of parts for older equipment, or parts may become obsolete, making it difficult to find replacement parts resulting in lost production time. Supply chain challenges have even further impacted the manufacturers’ ability to find replacement parts and repair older machines.
• Higher pricing for parts and service: When parts become scarce, the cost of those parts may increase if suppliers charge a premium for parts that are in high demand and have a limited supply. In addition, manufacturers may need to pay higher prices for custom-made parts or parts that need to be specially manufactured.

In short, if you are using older CIJ printers in your production, there is a higher risk of major downtime.

Learn how Diagraph can increase your uptime by trading out your old CIJ for a new Linx 8900 Series CIJ.