Printing businesses face challenges such as inflation, labour shortages, material scarcity and environmental concerns. To sustainably grow their business, offset players need to access new growth opportunities by embracing digital printing and an intelligent production floor. HP’s latest line-up of digital printing presses and intelligent solutions are designed to address production challenges in the commercial printing and labels and packaging industries.
‘We’re committed to unlocking profitable and sustainable growth for our customers,’ said Haim Levit, SVP and Division President of HP Industrial Print. ‘Our LEP, LEPx, and inkjet technologies have improved in terms of quality, versatility, productivity, sustainability and economics and our commitment and significant investment into continuous innovation has enabled over 8000 printers and converters to expand their businesses and grow sustainably. HP has been a digital transformation leader for more than 30 years, and our digital printing technology has established the gold standard in commercial print and labels and packaging production.’
The new HP Indigo 120K digital press sets a new standard for high-volume production and automation, while enabling printers to move jobs from analogue to digital more intuitively and economically to meet demanding customer needs. Optimising production floors by combining analogue and digital technologies, the HP Indigo 120K reduces human touchpoints and enables multi-press operation by a single operator. The new press delivers offset-matching image quality, flexible job routing between offset and digital, and an ECO mode option that reduces the press’s carbon footprint by 11%.
The next-generation of the bestselling B2 sheet-fed digital press, the launch of the HP Indigo 18K digital press, takes versatility, efficiency and user-friendliness to new heights. As the commercial printing sector tackles significant competitive transformation, the need for presses and solutions that help printers enrich their offering and sustainably grow their business is critical.
Advanced AI features like auto recovery and proactive alerts enhance productivity and simplify the entire production process, achieving up to 80% press availability (based on HP Indigo Digital Press time distribution mode) within a single shift. Aligning with HP’s sustainability commitment, the Indigo 18K supports Enhanced Productivity Mode (EPM), delivering 24% energy savings per sheet.
HP introduced the ground-breaking HP Indigo 7K Secure digital press, revolutionising restricted digital security printing by executing security-focused print jobs in a single pass. Collaborating with Jura JSP, this cutting-edge sheet-fed press enables workflows tailor-made for security production lines, so customers can diversify their offerings, cater to a comprehensive range of security needs, and acquire new customers to grow their business.
‘As the printing industry embraces automation and digitalisation, HP Indigo empowers customers with unprecedented levels of productivity, efficiency, versatility, quality, and cost-effectiveness,’ said Noam Zilbershtain, VP and GM, HP Indigo and Scitex. ‘Our portfolio defines the industry standard for automation and sustainability, reflecting HP’s vision for the print production floor.’
HP is defining the industry approach to automation through AI and robotics, launching a comprehensive print production automation ecosystem. Based on internal studies, customers who leverage automated processes achieve 51% higher volume and 80% more jobs per press compared to less automated customers. These customers also grow at an average of 27% year-over-year, which is higher than the industry average. HP’s holistic approach combines effective presses with intelligent features from job submission to delivery.
Efficiency Innovations Include:
– PrintOS Production Beat Support for analogue printing and finishing equipment, to enable customers to monitor their entire production floor, not only HP presses, capturing data in real time from analogue equipment and digitalising the entire production.
– HP Indigo PQ Maestro, offering an intelligent start-of-day wizard that optimises press performance.
– Preflight, an AI-based decision-making tool that automatically predicts the suitability of the best-fit print mode by learning customers preferences.
– AAA 2.0 (Auto Alert Agent) advanced, a machine-learning algorithm that increases print productivity with zero human intervention (based on internal data: 3-minute savings for each detected artifact).
As the industry moves towards a more productive production floor, HP introduced Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) in collaboration with MoviĜo Robotics, to automate media transfer, saving up to two hours per day, per press.
Developed in collaboration with printers and converters, HP also announced the launch of the HP Sustainability Amplifier programme, enabling printers and converters to accelerate their sustainability agenda and offer more sustainable prints. The programme, in collaboration with HP’s Sustainable Impact Strategy, aligns with HP’s commitment to renewable energy and reducing CO2 emissions.
HP also introduced the PageWide Plus Package, to enhance productivity, automation and economics. The enhancements to the HP PageWide Plus Package include:
– Performance Economy Colour (EC) Mode: delivering print quality customers require for faster turnaround with less colour ink and a 60% increase in productivity up to 244 mpm (800 fpm).
– General availability of Smart Workcell Controller: offering significant advancements in intelligent automation and productivity improvements of up to a factor of 15 times.
– On Press Colour Profiling: automation transforms colour profiling into a less than 5 minute job, a tenth of what it normally takes.
HP also announced two new additional capabilities expanding the versatility of the HP PageWide Advantage 2200 web inkjet press:
Heavier Media Expansion: enabling printers to use thicker substrates, allowing them to capture more high value jobs up to 320 gsm/18pt (heavy media requires HP PageWide Advantage 2200 with 3 Zone and Active Web Cooling Configuration).
Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) for Transactional Print Systems: Enabling printers to capture more speciality jobs and grow their business.
KEMTEK IMAGING SYSTEMS
+27 11 624 8021
jasona@kemtek.co.za
www.kemtek.co.za
