Inkjet & Digital Printing
New Business, Smarter Operations Central to HP Indigo Solutions for Growth Discussed at Dscoop5
Monday 22. February 2010 - HP helps customers grow through participation in business development focused user group event
HP today announced new and updated solutions to drive print service provider (PSP) productivity and profit opportunity, including a new HP SmartStream management information tool and the industry’s first white ink for sheet-fed digital presses.
HP made its announcements at the Digital Solutions Cooperative’s Dscoop5 Conference – one of the graphic arts industry’s largest user group meetings, attracting hundreds of HP Indigo users and partners. HP production printing solutions shown at Dscoop5 help PSPs manage their digital print operations, improve press uptime and enter new markets.
The new HP SmartStream Production Analyzer monitors, benchmarks and reports key metrics, providing customers with a deeper understanding of their HP Indigo print operations so they can improve efficiency.
The newly available HP ElectroInk White – significant achievement for sheet-fed digital presses – helps commercial printing firms and other PSP customers enter new markets for point-of-sale display and greeting card printing.
PSPs looking to expand with folding carton applications can now combine the packaging workflow of the HP SmartStream Labels and Packaging Print Server, powered by Esko with HP Indigo press 5500 and its thick substrate kit upgrade.
HP has extended its HP Indigo Print Care solution, which increases customers’ press uptime with diagnostic and print-quality assistance tools, to support the HP Indigo press 5500.
Updated HP Exstream Remote Collaboration tools provide HP Exstream customers with new document creation and management capabilities.
In addition to these solutions, HP is also showing its newest Indigo press – the HP Indigo W7200 – for the first time at a Dscoop event, highlighting its high-productivity, high-quality imaging features for publishing, photo and transpromotional printing applications. The Dscoop5 Solutions showcase also includes the HP Indigo 5500 and 7000 digital presses, HP SmartStream and HP Exstream software solutions, and HP Designjet and HP Scitex large-format printers.
“The annual Dscoop conference is our most valuable forum to meet with graphic arts customers, learn from them and highlight the ways HP can help them succeed,” said Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager, Indigo division, HP. “The solutions HP is bringing to Dscoop5 exemplify the types of innovations and process improvements that spur continual growth in digital printing.”
Macrolevel management data for multipress operations
Expanding HP’s comprehensive digital workflow portfolio, the new HP SmartStream Production Analyzer monitors, tracks, benchmarks and reports production metrics, providing customers with a deeper understanding of their production floor so they can make efficiency-minded management decisions.
HP SmartStream Production Analyzer records a wide range of data from the digital production floor, such as number of impressions printed, types of jobs, press uptime and number of paper jams. The product is for customers that use more than one HP Indigo press, and it especially benefits customers that have larger, multisite operations, helping them discern when and why specific plants, shifts or operators are not achieving maximum productivity.
New markets for PSPs – white ink
Available now worldwide and showcased at Dscoop5, the new HP ElectroInk White ink for the HP Indigo 5000 and 5500 digital presses allows customers to print a variety of jobs normally produced on offset or flexographic presses, such as greeting cards and point of purchase displays printed on coloured, transparent and foil substrates. As the only white ink available for sheet-fed digital presses, it continues HP Indigo’s tradition of innovation by providing one of the broadest offering of colour gamut capabilities, spot colours and special-effect inks in the digital colour production printing space.
“The white ink presents innovative new applications we could not have produced before,” said Val DiGiacinto, vice president, Sales, and partner, The Ace Group Inc. “Not only do we gain a broader range of capabilities for standard commercial products like invitations, the ink makes some market segments, such as digitally printed point of purchase signage, a more natural extension of our business.”
New markets for PSPs – folding carton capabilities
Improved media compatibility and a new workflow enhancement allow HP Indigo PSPs and packaging converters to meet the growing market need for quick-turnaround, offset-quality, and affordably priced short- and medium-run folding cartons.
The HP SmartStream Labels and Packaging Print Server, powered by EskoArtwork, the solution driving HP Indigo’s digital presses for the label market, is now compatible with the HP Indigo press 5500 as an alternate front-end solution for folding carton production. The sheet-fed 5500 press, with its optional thick substrate kit, and the web-fed HP Indigo WS6000 both support folding carton media, extending customers’ ability to win new business.
The HP Indigo Print Care customer support solution for HP Indigo 5000-series presses is now a standard feature on new HP Indigo press 5500s, and will be included as a free upgrade to existing users. With this solution, HP Indigo customers can increase press uptime using diagnostic and print-quality assistance tools, backed by live HP service center support, for quick and accurate problem detection and resolution. In addition to the new support for 5000-series presses, HP Indigo Print Care now includes a webcam as standard equipment, as well as an updated, easier-to-use customer interface.
Remote Collaboration with HP Exstream
HP Exstream’s improved and redesigned Remote Collaboration offering on display at Dscoop5 is a browser-based design tool. Remote Collaboration can create and deploy messages into document applications within hours while ensuring consistent branding and content accuracy.
PSP clients that are content experts – including marketing staff, legal professionals, copywriters, compliance officers and proofreaders – can use HP Exstream Remote Collaboration to write, edit and review targeted communications remotely, without affecting design production parameters like document layout, data, output or operational controls.
HP and the Digital Solutions Cooperative
The Digital Solutions Cooperative (Dscoop) is an independent user group community of HP graphic arts customers and partners. HP and HP Indigo customers founded Dscoop in 2005, and the organisation has consistently grown as a source of education, information sharing, professional networking and business development for members.
Today, Dscoop has more than 4,300 members from 46 countries. The group holds more than 50 educational webinars each year and its annual conference has been cited as cited as “largest user group conference in the industry.”(1)
The group’s 2010 conference, Dscoop5, will feature more than 70 sessions run by leading industry analysts, consultants and PSPs, as well as HP executives including: Christopher Morgan, senior vice president of the HP Graphics Solutions Business; Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager of HP Indigo; Jan Riecher, vice president and general manager of the Graphics Solutions Business in the Americas region; Scott Schiller of HP Inkjet High-speed Production Solutions; Scott Draeger of HP Exstream; and Rudy Herrera of HP Large-Format Signage.
More information about new HP graphic arts solutions announced at Dscoop is available at www.hp.com/go/dscoop5, as well as through the HP Graphic Arts Twitter feed.
HP offers flexible financing solutions for customers deploying next-generation HP digital printing technology through HP Financial Services, the company’s leasing and lifecycle asset management services subsidiary. An HP Financial Services representative is on-site at Dscoop5 to provide details of applicable offers. Information is also available at www.hp.com/hpfinancialservices.
(1) Cary Sherburne, “Users Groups: The Value Proposition,” WhatTheyThink.com, Jan. 22, 2009.