The push towards digital printing in the packaging and label industry is driving the development of HP Indigo’s presses, a market tipped to be worth $8 billion to the technology giant. Two years on from their first showing at drupa the B2 presses are up and running at beta sites. Nick Pond is a guest of HP and Currie Group in Israel as the company shows off its achievements.
Industry leaders packed into the state-of-the-art Kiryat Gat campus, located an hour’s drive outside of Tel Aviv, to witness the Indigo 20000 and 30000 in action. HP Indigo vice president and general manager, Alon Bar Shany, was on hand to welcome the crowd and introduce them to the digital packaging platform. Bar Shany claimed that, despite being built on the same core technology as the Indigo 10000, the presses, expected to be priced between $1-2 million, have been optimised for the new markets from the ground up.
“When we started developing the series four platform, when we were designing it, the balance between the first product, the sheetfed, and the packaging was very different. We realised at that time that potentially flexible packaging and folding cartons and labels could become even bigger than the sheetfed market. In the design, in the architecture of the presses themselves, we have tried to optimise the packaging play from day one,” he says.
Bar Shany is confident that within five years packaging will go on to make up more than 50% of the Indigo business. Although flexible packaging and folding cartons could be seen as digitally virgin fields, Bar Shany explains to Print21 that the headway already made in the label market has effectively primed the end-user for the 20000 and 30000.
“It’s something that will allow us to capture less than 10% of the total volume, for sure, a little bit more than that in terms of total value. When the brands realise they don’t have to order longer runs, they can split it up, they can do multiple SKUs, more than just personalisation, that’s when it starts changing,” he said.
After the address, the crowd, comprised of Currie Group customers and invited guests hosted by David Currie, split up into groups to tour the facility and see the two new seven-colour presses up and running in the pristine ElectroInk plant. The Indigo 20000 and 30000 both come fitted with an unwinder and inline primer as standard, while the 30000 comes with an inline coater as well. Both presses also showcase the new one shot imaging system, which accumulates all colour separations onto the blanket before applying it to the film, to better maintain colour accuracy on more sensitive polymer materials down to a 10 micron tolerance.
The Indigo 20000 builds on the success of the WS6600 targeting the label market as well as being a mid-web packaging platform for flexibles and sleeves. The 30-inch wide press is designed to self-calibrate for printing, priming, drying and tension depending on the substrate, and is kitted out with a unique Inline Drying System (IDS) designed to evaporate excess imaging oils to meet food packaging regulations.
The 29-inch wide Indigo 30000 reaches even further afield, into the folding cartons market. The 30000 is equipped with Esko front-end management software and a Tresu iCoat 30000 unit for aqueous and UV spot coating. The press delivered consistently high-quality prints, however there did appear to be a minor registration issue on the spot coating, up to 20 microns due to paper movement. With two more months of on site development still ahead of it, though, the team was confident this would be easily managed.
Demonstrating the uptake potential on the technology, both presses are already up and running at beta sites worldwide. An Indigo 20000 landed at Innovative Labeling Solutions in the US two and half weeks ago and is already producing 100% saleable jobs. At the same time Heret Printing, in Israel, is the first Indigo 30000 customer in the region. After less than a year in the market the Indigo 10000 is closing in on 100 installations in 23 countries around the world.
HP Indigo is the leading brand of digital printers in Australia and New Zealand where the Currie Group is the long-term distributor and exclusive agent.