As a food production business, there are mandatory elements that must be present in your production line for you to properly produce and package your food products. A date code printer is one of them. However, how do you know which date code printer is the one for the job? Well, you have come to the right place. Below is detailed information regarding exactly how to choose the right date code printer for food production to hopefully help you make the right decision for your production line!
Look At Downtime
When wanting your food production line to be as efficient and successful as possible, downtime needs to be a big consideration. Downtime not only subtracts from the time you’re available to produce and package your products, but it also costs you money. Unfortunately, when something goes wrong with a continuous inkjet (CIJ) printer, the entire printer needs to often be removed from the production line so it can be properly and professionally serviced. Not only is this expensive in terms of money, but it also consumes valuable time.
Luckily, this is not the case for thermal inkjet (TIJ) printers. The TIJ system has practically zero downtime due to the innovative ink cartridge technology. There are very little issues that can occur—especially because each printhead is introduced with a new cartridge.
Do You Need a Service Contract?
Service contracts are an added expense and frequent necessity if you’re buying a CIJ printer for your food production line. This is a monthly fee that gets paid for when an issue or problem occurs. Because of the complexity of the system, this is vital to have so professionals can come inspect it at a discounted rate.
TIJ printers, however, don’t need a service contract. The reason they don’t warrant a service contract is simply because they don’t have many issues where a professional needs to be called out. Instead, the employees can handle the few moving parts and disposable cartridges. If you can operate a mobile phone and change the ink cartridge in a desktop printer, you can operate a TIJ date code printer.
Consider Cleanup
Considering cleanup allows for you to properly understand how much time you’re going to have to add for your employees to do such tasks. The TIJ printer creates little to no mess, which is extremely different from the CIJ printers. Overtime, CIJ printer stations are coated with ink, which unfortunately requires harsh solvents to clean correctly. You want to make sure this is cleaned correctly so it doesn’t cause further issues down the road.
When looking at how to choose the right date code printer for your food production you can see there’s a right and wrong answer. After reading the information provided above, if you’re thinking that the TIJ printers are the way to go, you have come to the right place! Here at Sneed Coding Inc. we want to #keepcodingsimple and help you out. If you visit our website or call us and talk with a professional today, you can see number of TIJ printers available, including our industrial inkjet printer. Let us help pick the right one for you!