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A mid-volume food and cosmetics manufacturer in northern Italy was coding batch numbers and expiry dates using the GT-100E Handheld Thermal Inkjet Printer. As line speed increased and product mix grew, operators struggled to keep up, walking the conveyor with a handheld unit and stopping the line for reprints. Management needed to decide when to move from handheld to a fixed inline printer, comparing manual handheld printing against a dedicated inline system.
Key decision factors were print resolution at full conveyor speed, operator utilization, rework rates due to misprints, and overall cost per coded pack.
The GT-100E Handheld Thermal Inkjet Printer offers flexible TIJ 2.5 coding with up to 300 DPI vertical resolution and print heights from 1 to 12.7 mm. It can technically match conveyor speeds up to 406 m/min, but in practice the customer ran it handheld at around 60 m/min to maintain legibility and alignment.
At 60% of feasible handheld capacity, one operator coded about 14,600 packs/day on an 8-hour shift, including walking time and occasional stops for misprints. Labor demand was one full-time operator at €25/hour plus 20% of a second operator for changeovers and rework, resulting in roughly €200/day in labor tied directly to coding.
Misprints and smudged codes led to an estimated 2% rework/scrap rate, adding downtime and packaging waste. While the GT-100E is cost-effective to buy at around €699, the handheld workflow became the bottleneck as volumes grew.
The ST-210S-H1 Inkjet Thermal Printer is a fixed-mount TIJ 2.5 system designed for continuous inline use. It delivers up to 600 x 600 DPI resolution with a 12.7 mm print height and maintains stable printing up to 406 m/min at 90 DPI, or 60 m/min at 600 DPI, matching the customer’s conveyor at full resolution.
Mounted directly over the conveyor and triggered by sensors, the ST-210S-H1 coded at 60% of its inline capacity, achieving around 19,500 packs/day on the same 8‑hour shift with no need for an operator to walk the line. One operator now manages three lines via the 7-inch industrial touch screen and embedded Linux interface, reducing coding-specific labor to roughly €75/day.
Consistent 600 DPI codes on cartons and plastic films cut misprints and unreadable codes by over 50%, reducing the rework/scrap rate from 2% to about 0.8%. The system’s support for water-based, solvent, UV, invisible and food-grade inks also simplified compliance across different product categories.
Product B Performance:
Product A Performance:
At a conservative packed product value of €0.20/pack, reduced scrap saves roughly 135 packs/day × €0.20 ≈ €27/day. Labor savings are €125/day (€200 – €75).Combined daily savings with Product A: about €152/day.
Investment Comparison:Product B price: €699Product A price: €1,299Price difference: €600Daily savings with Product A: €152/dayPayback on price difference: under 1 month (≈ 4 working days)
Beyond payback, Product A processes around 4,900 more packs/day, providing additional headroom for future volume growth without new staffing.
Choose Product B if your budget is strictly under €1,000, volumes stay below 10,000 packs/day, and you need maximum portability for occasional or off-line coding.
Choose Product A if you run a continuous conveyor, want 600 DPI codes at full line speed, need to cut rework and scrap, and aim to free operators from walking the line. For most mid-volume manufacturers, the ST-210S-H1 Inkjet Thermal Printer is the superior long-term investment, with a payback on the price difference in well under a month and clear gains in consistency, throughput, and labor efficiency.
“Switching from the handheld GT-100E to the inline ST-210S-H1 gave us stable 600 DPI codes at full speed and cut our rework in half. Our operators no longer chase the line with a handheld printer, and the extra €600 paid for itself in less than two weeks.” — Luca Bianchi, Production Manager, Alpi Foods, Parma (Italy)
