Most coding equipment doesn’t fail dramatically. It degrades quietly. The machine still runs, still prints, still gets through the shift, so it stays on the line, year after year. But “still running” and “running well” are two very different things, and the gap between them has a cost that rarely shows up on a single invoice.
A modern thermal transfer overprinter coding flexible film in production.
If you’re running a thermal transfer overprinter (TTO) that’s a few years old, here are the signs it may be costing you more than a replacement would, and what your options are.
1. Unplanned downtime is creeping up
The occasional stoppage is normal. A pattern of them is not. When an ageing coder starts halting the line more often, a ribbon fault here, a print head issue there, the real cost isn’t the repair. It’s the lost output while the whole line waits, and it never seems to happen at a convenient moment. If your maintenance log is filling up with the same machine, that’s data worth acting on.
2. Ribbon consumption feels high
Older TTO mechanisms are simply less efficient with ribbon than modern direct drives. If your consumable spend has crept up without a matching rise in output, the machine itself may be the reason. A newer coder can cut ribbon cost with every roll, a saving that compounds quietly across a year of production.
3. Print quality is drifting
Legible date and batch codes are the difference between passing an audit first time and a costly investigation.
Faded codes. Codes in slightly the wrong place. The occasional batch where the date is hard to read. On their own these feel minor, but in a traceability-critical environment they’re anything but. A failed audit, a customer return, or a recall risk all start with an unreadable code. If quality control is catching more coding issues than it used to, the coder is telling you something.
4. Spare parts are getting harder to source
Every piece of equipment eventually goes end-of-life. When the parts for your coder become scarce, a small fault stops being a quick fix and becomes a long wait, or forces a full replacement anyway, on the manufacturer’s timeline rather than yours. If your supplier is struggling to source parts, you’re already living on borrowed time.
None of this shows up as a single number
That’s what makes ageing equipment deceptive. There’s no one invoice that says “your old coder cost you X this year.” Instead it leaks, a bit of downtime, a bit of extra ribbon, a bit of rework, spread across the year in a way that’s easy to absorb and easy to ignore. Add it up, though, and the running cost of holding onto an old machine often exceeds the cost of upgrading.
What upgrading actually involves
Any make, any model, any age, any brand. Your existing coder can be traded in against the upgrade.
The obvious objection is cost and disruption. In practice, an upgrade is more manageable than most operators expect, particularly when a trade-in is on the table.
At Mpack, the trade-in works simply. Whatever you’re running today, any make, any model, any age, and any brand, not just Markem-Imaje, can be traded in against a modern Markem-Imaje SmartDate® TTO overprinter. You tell us what’s on your line now, and we come back with what the upgrade looks like and what your existing machine is worth against it.
From flexible film and laminates to paper and foil lidding, the SmartDate® range codes the substrates most lines already run.
The SmartDate® range is built for the substrates most lines already run, including flexible film, laminates, pouches, labels and foil lidding, across food, beverage, pharma, medtech and more. The practical gains operators report after switching tend to be the mirror image of the problems above:
- Less unplanned downtime
- Lower ribbon cost per roll
- Cleaner codes that pass audits first time
- Live print data on screen, so issues are visible before they stop the line
How to decide
You don’t need to guess. If two or more of the signs above sound familiar, creeping downtime, rising ribbon spend, drifting quality, scarce parts, it’s worth getting a straight figure rather than continuing to absorb the cost.
Find out what your trade-in is worth →
Or call the Mpack team directly on +353 1 289 0077.
Mpack is exclusive Irish distributor for Markem-Imaje.
