When I’ve discuss money management and cost saving with screen printers, they’ve often reminded me of the story about the drunk crawling around under a street lamp outside a pub. A police officer turns up and asks him what he’s doing. The drunk points down the road and says that he dropped his car keys somewhere in the dark and that he’s looking for them. The officer asks why he’s not looking for the keys where he dropped them, and the drunk replies that he can see better under the street lamp.
So when printers obsess about the cost of ink (which is a minor expense in the overall scheme of things), instead of examining the big ticket items like labour cost, maintenance, rent, and other overhead expenses, they’re looking where it’s easier to see—such as ink costs.
But if you feel that you have the cost of your big ticket items optimized and now want to check your ink costs, there are three simple steps you can take for calculating your per-print ink cost: (1) establish the per-gram cost of the ink; (2) weigh the garment before printing; and (3) after printing but before curing, weigh the garment again.
The difference between the weights in grams taken at steps (3) and (2) is the weight of the ink used. Multiply that weight by the cost per gram determined in step (1) and you have the cost of ink per print.
Now, for the big question . . . When you find out how little the ink per print really is, ask yourself why you’d risk using a cheap ink when a great ink will still be a very low cost per print.
The cost of your ink per print will never be the difference between business success or failure. But uncontrolled big expense items could be.
The keys to cost control probably aren’t in the light—try looking in the darker places. It might take more effort but it will yield better results.