Sun Chemical Expands Ink Dispenser Program

TORONTO, Canada—Originally designed for commercial and folding carton printers, the Sun Chemical Dispenser Program, which helps customers decrease their overall ink costs by up to 45 percent, will expand to serve customers in the narrow-web tag and label market.

Sun Chemical showcased the dispenser program to brand owners and potential label and narrow-web customers during an open house hosted on July 13-14 by ASL Print FX, a customer and leading printer in the narrow-web tag and label market in Canada.

The Sun Chemical Dispenser Program allows printers to mix only the inks they need, reduce their inventory and waste, improve color-matching consistency, and significantly decrease total operating costs.

Scott Hughes, an engineer and project coordinator at ASL Print FX, said that ASL recently signed a 10-year contract with Sun Chemical using the new dispenser program for the narrow-web market thanks primarily to a cost savings of approximately 30 percent in ink costs using the commercial dispenser program.

“The Sun Chemical Dispenser Program has worked very well for us,” Hughes says. “We’re not wasting ink and have reduced our ink inventory by half. The program has reduced overtime costs, improved productivity, and has provided the color consistency that our customers—who are major brands—demand to stay on the forefront in our industry. We’re very happy with the system and the service we’ve been getting from Sun Chemical.”

Label and narrow-web printers can receive the savings and a GFI dispensing unit along with color repeatability and accuracy, to within 0.001/lb, of their colors. The dispensing unit is provided to the printer at no cost by purchasing a minimum annual amount of Sun Chemical bases and inks. Printers that sign up for the program will have better control and can provide a faster turnaround to meet the demands of their print jobs since they don’t need to wait for color inks to be delivered.

Through the Dispenser Program, a printer has access to more than 100,000 colors through Sun Chemical’s SmartColor™ Global Shade Library. If a printer has a spectrophotometer, it can upload the color data obtained through the readings to a secure Web site for their color formula, or a sample can be mailed to the nearest local Sun Chemical location. Taking this information, customers will then receive via email the color formula they need to mix the color on-site.