The initial price of the tij printer is 40% lower than in conventional continuous inkjet (CIJ) equipment, at approximately $12,000 per unit, with no solvent recovery system (15% lower in installation prices). The Domino Ax350i, for example, uses a pre-filled ink cartridge (100 mL capacity) costing only 0.0003 cents per character, 85% less than CIJ technology, and with a usage rate of 98% (average standard equipment wastage rate of 20%). 2023 Industry figures of the flexible packaging industry reveal there is a decrease in average annual usage of consumables on the production line of the TIJ program by 72%, and return cycle on investment goes down to 3 months, which is 7 times less than in laser marking.
Low maintenance needs and power consumption have significant advantages. Brother’s TIJ printheads, which are industrial-grade, come equipped with self-cleaning modules that require 0.002 mL maintenance ink for each 2 million jetts (at a cost of $0.1) and conserve 99% on O&E cost compared to daily solvent replenishment by CIJ units (avg. monthly cost $500). Nestle production line measurement shows TIJ printer standby power consumption is only 3 watts (operating peak 30 watts), and the annual energy consumption cost is 92% less than pneumatic valve inkjet printer. MTBF (mean time to failure) of 35,000 hours, support 7×24 continuous operation, failure rate decreased from 12% of CIJ to 0.5%, reduced downtime losses by $250,000 annually.
Productivity improvement and control of the error rate will boost economy. The Videojet 2380 tij printer offers a 120 bags-per-second print rate, 600 m/min line synchronization support (positioning error ±0.01 mm), and improves the thermal transfer efficiency by 400%. After adopting TIJ technology in its manufacturing line for shampoo bottles by P&G, QR code print rates were reduced from 0.15% to 0.001%, thus reducing return loss of $180 million a year. Tests have shown that TIJ provides a content switching delay of less than 5 ms (50 ms for legacy printers) in printing variable data, enhancing daily output by 50%, Unicode character sets (covering 200+ languages), and reducing global deployment costs by 60%.
Compliance with the environment also reduces hidden costs. Water-based or UV-curable ink printing (VOC emission <5 ppm), TIJ printers have 95% lower process cost than solvent-based CIJ and are EU REACH, FDA 21 CFR and China GB 38508-2020 compliant. Unilever measured that the amount of waste liquid produced by its TIJ machines reduced from an average of 50 liters per month to 0.5 liters, and the hazardous waste treatment cost reduced by 99%. In 2024, since the implementation of TIJ technology in Amazon logistics hubs, the share of environmentally certified packaging increased from 45% to 90%, and the carbon tax expenditure reduced by 28%.
Smart integration drives cost savings all along the entire lifecycle. Under Siemens’ IIoT platform with TIJ suppliers, the device synchronizes production data in real time according to the OPC UA protocol (transmission latency <2 ms), enabling prediction of ink margins (accuracy ±1%) and optimizing procurement costs by 30%. Since rolling out the Coca-Cola plant, ink inventory turns increased by 400% while supply chain cost decreased by 22%. Market data indicate that in 2023, worldwide exports of TIJ equipment increased by 40%, 65% of which were from the food and beverage industry, the total expense of a single unit annually is 58% lower than laser equipment, and ROI was 380%.
