Five Ways Managed Print Supplies Boost Your Bottom Line

How much time do you spend thinking about bottom-line results in your business? It’s a safe bet that the answer is “plenty.”

So, how would you react if we told you there’s a source of savings that can have a significant impact on bottom-line results hiding in plain sight within many manufacturing organizations and distribution companies?

Well, business leaders turn to Lowry for answers, not questions. And in this case, the answer is a managed printer consumables and supplies program. Specifically, Lowry’s flexible managed inventory options that unlock potential savings and ensure you have the right supplies at the right time with make-and-hold or blanket-order agreements.

The power of a Lowry Managed Print Supplies Program is twofold. First, it’s the easiest, most reliable way to avoid unexpected inventory shortages that lead to costly delays in your operations. Second, a Managed Print Supplies Program can unlock potential savings and drive more profit to your bottom line.

Five Ways Managed Print Supplies Boost Your Opportunities

Here’s a brief look at five cost-saving opportunities.

Volume Discounts: Like many commodities, label pricing is often driven by volume: the more you order, the more you save. But you don’t necessarily need to place bigger orders all at once to capture savings. Lowry’s Managed Print Supplies Programs offer the potential for volume discounts that leverage your long-term requirements to capture savings that aren’t available with a series of smaller orders.

Lower Freight Costs: With a Managed Print Supplies Program, rather than ordering supplies separately and paying for shipping on each order, you can bundle your orders together to take advantage of consolidated shipments that reduce your overall delivery expenses.

Reduced Inventory Carrying Costs: Everyone wants to avoid tying up capital in excess inventory that sits on a shelf for an extended time. A Managed Print Supplies Program optimizes the amount of stock you need to keep on hand, using regular replenishment to ensure you don’t run out.

Lower Administrative Costs: Managing labels, ribbons, and other print supplies can be time-consuming and require a lot of paperwork. A Managed Print Supplies Program can significantly reduce that administrative workload. Instead of hours spent managing inventory and reorders, your front-office staff will have time to focus on other critical business priorities.

Price Protection: Nobody likes a surprise price increase, especially in the middle of a budget cycle. A Managed Print Supplies Program may offer the flexibility to lock in pricing for a predetermined time period. This price protection guards against price increases and gives you the predictability needed to avoid unexpected costs and meet budget expectations.

Saving money is a compelling reason to take a long, hard look at a Managed Print Supplies Program, but there are other benefits, too. As mentioned above, it’s a reliable way to ensure you always have the necessary stock of labels and other supplies you need to maximize productivity. That alone can have a massive impact on your bottom line.

When you work on a Managed Print Supplies Program with Lowry, we’ll take a thorough look into all of your printing needs. Then, we’ll apply our decades of experience and printing expertise to optimize every aspect of your operation for success.

Building a More Reliable and Efficient Printing Operation

Reducing supply costs is only one advantage of a managed print supplies program. Equally important is creating a printing environment that supports consistent production, minimizes disruptions, and helps every department operate more efficiently. From warehouse labeling to manufacturing traceability, reliable print operations play a critical role in keeping business processes moving.

Standardize Supplies for Consistent Print Quality

Most organizations run hundreds of printers at multiple sites using different labels, ribbons, and media acquired from multiple vendors. Though this sounds fairly flexible, it creates problems with print quality consistency, both in terms of durability and color matching, as well as compatibility issues between image producers and printing devices that lead to excessive troubleshooting.

By standardizing print supplies, every printer operates with media that is designed for its specifications. Reliable supplies yield crisp, long-lasting labels that are readable from shipping to storage and through production. So, amazing print quality is essential for barcode and RFID labels because it has a direct impact on scanning accuracy.

Cutting down variability provides operational consistency with less wasted material and reprints for businesses.

Reduce Equipment Downtime

A printer that is down quickly starts affecting productivity. A missing shipment label, unreadable barcode, or damaged printhead can put a hold on receiving, production, and order fulfillment processes or an inventory management task.

Many of these interruptions can be avoided with a managed print supplies strategy that guarantees compatible consumables are always in stock when needed. Quality labels and ribbons minimize printhead wear, while scheduled replenishment reduces the chance of running out of essential supplies at critical moments.

These, in combination with proactive equipment maintenance and technical support, help businesses maximize printer uptime while keeping day-to-day operations running smoothly.

Improve Traceability Across Operations

Accurate labeling forms the foundation of effective tracking systems. Whether printing product labels, shipping labels, asset tags, or RFID media, every label must remain readable throughout its intended lifecycle.

Reliable printing supports traceability by enabling organizations to:

• Track products from manufacturing through distribution
• Maintain accurate inventory records
• Improve shipping accuracy
• Support regulatory compliance
• Simplify product recalls when necessary

When every printed label performs consistently, employees spend less time correcting errors and more time focusing on higher-value activities.

Support Business Growth Without Increasing Complexity

The more businesses expand into other facilities, product lines, or distribution centers, the harder it is to manage print operations. Purchasing processes differ, inventory levels are not the same, and there are always a few suppliers: this can overcomplicate things.

Standardized procurement and replenishment processes form the basis for a managed print supplies program that grows in line with your business. Rather than each location operationalizing supplies in isolation, organizations see value in centralized planning, unified inventory management, and more seamless deliveries.

This makes purchasing straightforward and streamlines the same operational standards at every site.

Better Visibility Into Supply Usage

Many organizations have limited visibility into how quickly print supplies are consumed. Overstocking ties up working capital, while understocking increases the risk of operational delays.

With managed inventory programs, businesses gain better insight into consumption patterns and reorder cycles. Historical usage data helps forecast future demand more accurately, allowing organizations to maintain appropriate inventory levels without excessive stock.

This data-driven approach also supports budgeting by making supply expenses more predictable throughout the year.

Choose Supplies Designed for Your Environment

Not every application requires the same type of label or ribbon. Environmental conditions, product materials, and handling requirements all influence which supplies will deliver the best performance.

For example, organizations may require labels that can withstand:

• High temperatures during manufacturing
• Cold storage and freezer environments
• Moisture and humidity
• Chemical exposure
• Outdoor conditions
• Frequent handling and abrasion

Selecting application-specific media improves durability while reducing replacement costs and scanning failures later in the product lifecycle.

Integrate Printing Into a Complete Tracking Strategy

Printing is typically only one part of an asset and inventory management strategy. Any labels created today might be read later with a barcode or RFID when they are scanned as they move through warehouses, production facilities, transportation networks, and customer sites.

Lowry Solutions is the company that enables organizations to connect industrial printing with enterprise tracking technologies, allowing order-oriented workflows to increase visibility across operations. Print supplies, whether for barcode labeling, RFID encoding, or inventory identification, all need to be managed well in order for accurate data collection to begin the moment a label is printed.

When business systems such as ERP, WMS, and Lowry’s own Sonaria platform are integrated with the printed type of identification, it becomes part of an interconnected ecosystem that can ensure automation, inventory veracity, and data-driven decision-making.

A Long-Term Investment in Operational Performance

A managed print supplies program can provide value that goes further than immediate cost savings. Together, it helps organizations reduce operational risk and enhance print consistency while implementing a simplified procurement process, all while ensuring the same reliable processes used to identify products in modern supply chain workflows.

Lowry Solutions brings quality supplies, inventory planning, technical knowledge, and post-implementation support together to help businesses design a print structure that can sustain productivity even as operational needs change. The outcome is a stronger, more efficient operation where labeling contributes to every aspect of the asset/inventory lifecycle, from efficiency to traceability to productivity.