ROI (Return on investment) is a very good tool to use when you are considering buying new equipment to your production line. Making an ROI for a printing machine is complicated. However, calculating an ROI for a cleaning machine which is a supplement and not a necessity is actually very simple.
Download a checklist that prepares you to make an ROI right now - click here!
What affects the ROI?
Well, a lot of things do. You encounter many things that affect your production every day and taking a step back and get an overview can be very helpful. Note down the little things that have become a natural part of a production, what are people saying?
“Other people (production managers, etc.) tell me jobs have become more complex, runs are shorter, and people are having to do more changeovers…” This might be something you hear on the floor, which means you should probably look at – “Number of changeovers per day” – How many do you have and how does it affect your business?
“We wasted a lot of materials on that project!” Do you hear this? Then you should note - the cost of wasted substrate, ink, etc. – You need materials, but wasting materials is reducing your earnings in the long run.
“We have too much downtime and we are behind on the production schedule…” – Here it is obvious, but take notice every time you have - downtime from dirty anilox what is the price per minute production cost – everyone is aware you are having downtime, but are you noting how often it happens?
“We can’t find the right people and labour expenses are increasing…” – Finding reliable people who wants to clean manually can be difficult. Look at your – labour expense – how many times do you rehire people and can you somehow avoid rehiring for the same position?
These are just a few examples of things that are costing you time and money, which you need to take note of if you want to do a return-on-investment calculation of an automated anilox cleaner. A simple conversation can uncover a lot of issues regarding your production, scheduling and cost operation.
The things you cannot measure
While a lot of things are measurable other things are not. For example, when it comes to labour costs often people who clean and work with solvent and chemicals work extra hours. Working extra hours means they are more exposed to health issues and often have more sick days and eventually leave their position.
Measuring health and safety issues are important. We know that solvents and chemicals are bad for the working environment, however, it is not possible to directly measure the negative effects as the consequences are only visible in the long term run.
Bottlenecks might also be an issue you experience often, but it can be difficult to get an overview of the actual reasons for them as they might be caused by several factors in the production workflow.
There will always be something you cannot control and measure – you can come close, but every time you make a calculation like a return on investment there will be unknown factors.
What should you do?
To sum up, making an investment return on an automated anilox cleaner is not difficult. You just need to have a few simple numbers ready – once you have that it is rather simple to see whether an automated anilox cleaning system can benefit your business.
Do you want to download a checklist that prepares you to make an ROI - click here!
