Inkjet & Digital Printing
Scanket Continues its Tradition with the Installation of an HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press
Wednesday 30. September 2009 - HP announced today that Scanket AS, of Bikerød, Denmark, has installed an HP Indigo WS6000, its fifth in a succession of digital presses that began with an HP Indigo press ws2000 in 2000.
Scanket offers both conventional and digital label printing services to customers and printers without a digital capability in Scandinavia and Germany. Since its foundation in 1985, Scanket has operated a programme of continuous investment to maintain its leadership position in the Danish labels market. Within a year of installing its HP Indigo press ws2000, the company was running it in two shifts and soon after installed an HP Indigo press ws4000. This was followed by an HP Indigo press ws4050 and 4500. The company presently operates these last two with its new HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press.
Part of Scankets digital success comes from its strategy of finding work that suits digital printing, rather than trying to move conventional printing onto digital presses. At the same time, this belief in playing to the strengths of digital has benefited customers, too.
“Its misleading to talk about short runs,” said Martin Fundal, managing director, Scanket. “Some of our shrink sleeve jobs run twenty to thirty kilometres, but within that run there may be as many as one hundred small image and text variations. It would be prohibitively expensive to produce them conventionally. We also rely on our HP Indigo presses to print bar codes and other security devices. For example, blood transfusion services require absolute reliability and readability of bar codes, and the label set for one donor can require ten bar codes.”
While Scanket illustrates the power of HPs “end-to-end” approach to digital label printing, it has taken a different approach to finishing: all of its HP Indigo presses operate with in-line finishing systems, rather than the more common near-line configuration. It has DigiCon lines from HP partner A B Graphic International as well as a shrink sleeve unit from another HP partner, DCM.
“In-line finishing can be more efficient than near-line,” Fundal said. “Configuring presses in-line is less labour-intensive and contributes to a smooth workflow.”
Fundal cites high print quality, substrate versatility, the ability to handle variable data and special colours as reasons for continuing to invest in HP Indigo presses.
“We chose the HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press for is increased production speed, but also because we know we can rely on HP. As a company, it is big enough to set the agenda for digital printing, and I havent seen any digital system print better,” Fundal concluded.