HP unleashes Digital Printing portfolio at drupa 2016

Reimagines possibilities of printing with new PageWide, Indigo, HP Jet Fusion 3D printing solutions and more. With the largest exhibit space at the show (spanning the size of a football field in hall 17), HP featured more than 50 digital printing solutions from across its portfolio highlighting the innovation, speed, performance and power of digital printing.

At drupa 2016, HP introduced a range of digital printing solutions designed to empower print service providers (PSPs) to reinvent their possibilities. The company unveiled the new HP PageWide C500 Press, a flexible and robust industrial post-print corrugated solution powered by proven HP PageWide Technology. It also showcased the new HP Indigo Digital Combination Press, enabling HP Indigo print and digital embellishments in a single pass. And, demonstrating the power of its portfolio, HP announced early customer adoption of its new HP Indigo 12000, 8000, 7900 and 5900 Digital Presses and a first beta customer for HP Indigo 50000.

“drupa 2016 is a celebration in the graphics industry and an opportunity to showcase innovations that are transforming the print and graphics world,” said Mike Salfity, general manager and global head, HP Graphics Solutions Business, HP. “HP is redefining the role of printing with digital innovations that change the economics of the graphics industry. We have breakthroughs at drupa that aim to surprise, delight and inspire print providers with the possibilities enabled by print.”

Igniting digital corrugated post-print with decades of innovation

Leveraging 30 years of HP Thermal Inkjet innovation and powered by proven single-pass HP PageWide Printing Technology, the new HP PageWide C500 Press introduces a highly versatile, offset-quality cost effective solution for corrugated direct-to-board printing.

The new press is designed to seamlessly integrate into a standard production environment, from large integrated packaging converters with centralized or distributed printing, to small, independent sheet plants, enabling customers to affordably adopt digital technology for mainstream production and reinvent a segment ripe with opportunity. Digital printing is the fastest growing segment in packaging with a projected annual growth rate of 17 percent in a market expected to be worth $19 billion by 2019.

Helping customers expand media versatility and enhance production flexibility, HP Corrugated Grip Technology allows customers to handle a wide range of media from the lightest micro-flute to the heaviest double-wall board. Additionally, new water-based HP inks are designed for printing on the non-food contact surface of paperboard packaging and comply with global food safety regulations and industry guidelines necessary to produce food-compliant packaging, thus allowing customers to capture more opportunities with leading food and packaging brands.

The press joins HP’s growing portfolio of digital solutions for packaging from thin films to cartons and corrugated, providing converters with new opportunities to increase productivity and profitability while satisfying dynamic market requirements.

HP plans to start testing the HP PageWide C500 Press at customer sites in 2017, and the press is expected to be commercially available in 2018.

The future of digital combination labels production

HP previewed its vision for the future of combination labels’ production. The HP Indigo Digital Combination Press concept will incorporate HP Indigo print and digital embellishments in one press, creating a fully-digital, single-pass solution for more customers to deliver high-value labels and packaging production.

Showcased as a technology demo and as part of a dedicated line with an HP Indigo WS6800 Digital Press, this new digital combination concept, developed in alliance with JetFX, enabled streamlined production of digital spot and tactile varnishes, digital foils, as well as embellishments of virtually unlimited designs made possible using HP SmartStream Mosaic.

The HP Indigo Digital Combination Press concept demonstrates the advantages of a fully-digital combination press, providing a single point-of-control for all functions with seamless integration to the digital-front-end of an HP Indigo WS6800 or 8000 Digital Press, also reducing waste and production time.

Featuring the world’s first production-ready commercial 3D printing system

HP showcased the newly introduced HP Jet Fusion 3D Printing Solution – a landmark in design, prototyping and manufacturing. Delivering superior quality physical parts up to 10 times faster- and at half the cost- than current 3D print systems, HP Jet Fusion 3D printers are designed for rapid prototyping and production, producing functional parts at the individual voxel level (a voxel is the 3D equivalent of a 2D pixel in traditional printing). This event was the first public showing of HP’s 3D printing systems since its launch in May.

Customer adoption of the new HP Indigo portfolio

Since the worldwide introduction of the new HP Indigo portfolio in March 2016, the company is achieving strong market acceptance and customer adoption. Early customers of: HP Indigo 12000 Digital Press include global customers from Spain, UK, Italy as well as U.S.; of HP Indigo 8000 include those from Germany, France, Netherlands and U.S.; of HP Indigo 7900 are from France and U.S.; and of HP Indigo 5900 include from Netherlands and U.S. The first beta customer of the HP Indigo 50000 Digital Press also invested $5.2 million in six HP Indigo 7900 Digital Presses.  A leading Malaysian photobook service provider will install HP Indigo W7250 Digital Press in addition to its four existing HP Indigo digital presses. Leading digital label printer from Philippines has recently added to its current fleet of HP presses by acquiring another HP Indigo WS6800 Press.

Additionally, more than 500 presses at over 300 customer sites are now connected to PrintOS, with PrintOS applications already helping customers increase daily print volumes and improve press performance. PrintOS Box has even allowed Barcelona-based customer to reduce time from file receipt to job production from 40 minutes to just 5 minutes.

Strategic partner solutions for digital press customers

HP also expanded strategic partner offerings at drupa, building on a decade of collaboration with Esko to deliver new workflow solutions for HP Indigo customers. The new Esko Automation Engine can be integrated with HP SmartStream Production Pro to support light packaging on the new HP Indigo 12000, 7900 and 5900 Digital Presses. Esko is also powering its preflight capabilities to support Enhanced Productivity Mode (EPM) for labels and packaging applications.

Investing in customer innovation

HP Financial Services has invested more than $2.3 billion over the past seven years to help HP customers acquire the latest industry-leading digital print technology. With HP Financial Services’ recently expanded portfolio of investment solutions, print service providers can gain easier and faster access to new HP products announced at drupa 2016, and continue to scale and upgrade in line with HP print innovation.