Mobile Thermal Printers

Mobile Thermal Printers Cut Forms Cost Down to Size

Some companies have justified conversion from impact to thermal mobile printers almost entirely on the return on investment generated from media savings. Use the worksheets below to calculate the cost difference between impact and thermal printing supplies.

Annual Supply Costs for Impact Printing

Annual Supply Costs for Thermal Printing

Organizations can reduce their supply costs alone by more than 55 percent by using compact thermal receipts and invoices instead of three-part forms. Many organizations that continue to use impact printing technology do so because of reluctance to change legacy operations, or because of misperceptions about thermal printing capabilities.

This article documents the cost savings attainable by switching from 8 1/2-by-11-inch forms and explains why thermal technology is a cost-effective choice for invoice and receipt printing.

By eliminating the ribbon, direct thermal printers eliminate a direct cost from mobile printing applications.An American Barcode and RFID customer previously used impact printers to create customer invoices on its direct store delivery routes. The company purchased an average of just four $3 replacement ribbons annually per route. Impact printing directly added $12 per route to the company’s operating costs,not including the time spent ordering and changing ribbons. Converting to thermal printing saved the company $36,000 annually in ribbon costs alone. Higher-volume operations would save significantly more.

Thermal paper costs less than three-part forms,which gives thermal printing a significant long-term total cost of ownership advantage over impact. Common 8 1/2-by-11-inch three-part forms cost about 6 cents each. An 11-inch thermal invoice or receipt costs about 4.9 cents. Therefore,companies can reduce paper costs by 18.4 percent, or $11 per 1,000 forms printed, merely by converting from impact to thermal for existing forms printing, exclusive of ribbon savings.

Updating route forms to the common 4-by-6-inch format can produce more dramatic supply savings. One American Barcode and RFID customer redesigned its full-page route receipts to fit a 4-by-6-inch form, which has plenty of room for all the information and graphics used on the larger form. Because of the clarity of thermal printing, printouts are crisp and clear—even on the smaller document. The cost-per-invoice ofthe smaller forms is 2.7 cents, compared to 6 cents for the full-size sheet. The 3.3-cent cost-per-invoice reduction represents a 55 percent savings that will provide sustainable improvement to operating expenses. The high-volume distributor issues approximately a million invoices a month and will gain six-figure supplies savings. The standard 4-inch media rolls used in the company’s mobile thermal printers last more than two days, so route professionals spend much less time changing paper than they did with impact printers.

Some companies have justified conversion from impact to thermal mobile printers almost entirely on the return on investment generated from media savings. Use the worksheets below to calculate the cost difference between impact and thermal supplies.

Annual Supply Costs for Impact Printing

Annual Supply Costs for Thermal Printing