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Web Plus: Online cost model proves helpful
 Ela Sathern, Senior Editor/Online
Woodinville, WA-based Stockpot Soup in February replaced three ink-jet case printers with a single Model 3200 digital case printer from iconotech (Wheeling, IL). The new case printer costs less to operate and is more flexible than the ink-jet printers it replaced. It’s used on about half of Stockpot’s outbound cases to give them unique bar-code tracking numbers. The other half of the company’s cases get hand-applied, pressure-sensitive labels because certain customers require that format.
In the process of researching the new case-coding equipment, Stockpot project manager John Schwaig discovered that iconotech now offers an online cost-modeling tool at its Web site, www.icono tech.com. This tool can be used to measure the capital and operating costs of iconotech’s digital case-printing system compared to alternatives such as ink-jet printing, manual labeling, labeling by machine, and preprinting of cases. Visitors can access the site freely, but the cost-modeling section requires registration.
Schwaig decided to use the iconotech cost-modeling tool to find out what his costs would be if he switched to 100% digital case printing.
“It calculated we’d save about $290,000 annually,” says Schwaig. Even though he can’t make such a 100% switch because half his customers require hand-labeling, he found the exercise provided “a good snapshot of what was theoretically possible at our plant.”
“No other supplier I know of can offer such a tool,” Schwaig says. “If I was on the fence about deciding in favor of digital case printing as a possible replacement for labeling by hand, this tool could sway me one way or the other.”
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