Business News
Rotomail Italia Installs HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press to Meet Demand for Versatile Variable Data Production
Tuesday 05. October 2010 - Rapidly rising production volumes stimulate need for increased capacity
HP today announced that Rotomail Italia SpA, of Cologno Monzese, Milan, has installed an HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press to expand its capacity to meet the rapidly expanding demand for variable data colour digital printed products.
Rotomail Italia was established in 1998 as a company specialising in on-demand printing based on digital data. Since then the company has grown steadily, moving into digital colour printing in 1999, and today it is one of the largest digital colour print providers in Europe with 101 employees. In 2010, the company has seen a 20 percent growth in its business, with an estimated annual production of 700 million colour pages per year.
“We needed additional print capacity and I had seen the HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press installed at our partner company, Rotolito Lombarda,” said Giovanni Antonuzzo, chief executive officer, Rotomail Italia. “I realised that the T300 press was the only system of its type currently available on the market that was suitable for us. Facing steadily increasing print volumes, it was important for us to be able to count on a digital printing system that was already tested, proven in production and that had already given evidence of its reliability and performance capabilities.”
Antonuzzo approached HP for the first time in mid-July and the HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press was delivered on Sept. 9. Commissioning and operator training will take an additional few weeks, but the press is expected to be in full production in early October.
“As well as the press’s performance and reliability, we were also attracted by its extreme flexibility,” continued Antonuzzo. “The T300 press will be able to print the entire range of products in our portfolio, from booklets for travel agencies, to financial papers and documents, to digital books, posters and so on. This means that the press will enable us to address all the requirements from the market in terms of products and applications.
“The T300 press offers high quality standards and supports different formats, substrates and weights, which means that such a press enables an operator to realise whatever his own creativity can conceive,” said Antonuzzo.
The first applications Rotomail Italia intends to print on the HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press will be 80 percent variable data projects, mainly personalised books.
“After some months, we will be able to understand where the HP T300 press will be most effective and we’ll organise our production accordingly,” said Antonuzzo. “We aim to expand our business in two major markets. On one side, we want to approach the offset market: thanks to the T300, we will be able to offer the same quality of products, but with a higher flexibility in terms of time and costs. I am sure there will be a lot of traditional offset applications we will be able to realise using the HP T300 press. The second part is to increase the use of variable data capabilities into mass market and large retail applications. We see a new and interesting market developing there.”
For Rotomail Italia, the availability of HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press and its production requirements coincided fortuitously.
“HP made a miracle,” said Antonuzzo. “HP appeared to have the right system for us, the one that was able to address all of our production needs and strategic requirements. The HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press was there, proven and ready to be installed – and HP managed to deliver it in a very short time.”
Real-world, high-volume digital printing available today from HP
Since its first commercial installation in December 2008, the HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press has helped advance digital print from niche to mainstream applications by offering cost-effective, high-volume digital colour production. The press prints a 762mm (30-inch) wide roll with 1,200 x 600 addressable dots per inch four-colour process printing at a speed up to 122m (400 feet) per minute.
The HP T300 is one of the most productive digital colour presses currently operating in live commercial print environments. The press prints on any low-cost, uncoated paper, as well as on a range of coated media. The HP T300 also offers attractive capital acquisition and operating costs, including the ability to purchase consumables as needed without click charges.
“HP has dedicated its sizable resources toward creating a new paradigm of what print professionals can achieve, and it has executed on that vision with HP Inkjet Web Press solutions,” said Aurelio Maruggi, vice president and general manager, Inkjet High-speed Production Solutions, HP. “We are honoured by the installation of an HP T300 in Rotomail Italia – one of Europe’s most prominent digital colour printing businesses. This speaks volumes about the real-world benefits HP is providing today with its industry-leading solutions for high-volume digital production.”