The Future of Printing Unveiled: HP’s Advanced Tech and Intelligent Automation

• Launches new HP Indigo 120K Digital Press for best-in-class productivity¹, 18K Digital Press handling the widest range of print applications ever produced with a single B2 digital press².
• Unveils innovative approach to digital security printing with new HP Indigo 7K Secure Digital Press.
• Defines industry standard for end-to-end automation using artificial intelligence and robotics.
• Introduces enhancements to the HP PageWide portfolio to solve production challenges and unlock growth opportunities for the printing industry.

At Dscoop Edge, HP Inc. ushered in a new era for digital printing with the latest lineup of HP digital printing presses and intelligent solutions designed to address today’s production challenges in the commercial printing and labels and packaging industries.

Printing businesses face challenges such as inflation, labor shortages, material scarcity, and environmental concerns. To sustainably grow their business, offset players need to access new growth opportunities by embracing digital printing and an intelligent production floor.

“We’re committed to unlocking profitable and sustainable growth for our customers,” said Haim Levit, SVP and Division President of HP Industrial Print. ” Our LEP, LEPx, and inkjet technologies have improved in terms of quality, versatility, productivity, sustainability, and economics and our commitment and significant investment into continuous innovation has enabled over 8,000 printers and converters to expand their businesses and grow sustainably. HP has been a digital transformation leader for more than 30 years, and our digital printing technology has established the gold standard in commercial print and labels and packaging production.”

Addressing High-Volume Production Challenges 

Today’s printing businesses are navigating increasing production challenges. Supply chain disruption, energy supply concerns and worsening sector labor shortages reinforce the need for greater efficiency, speed and reliability across the production floor.

The HP Indigo 120K Digital Press announced today sets a new standard for high-volume production and automation, while enabling printers to move jobs from analog to digital more intuitively and economically to meet demanding customer needs. Optimizing production floors by combining analog and digital technologies, the HP Indigo 120K reduces human touchpoints and enables multi-press operation by a single operator. The new press delivers offset-matching image quality, flexible job routing between offset and digital, and an ECO mode option that reduces the press’s carbon footprint by 11%³, supporting sustainability goals.

Unlocking Profitable Growth

The next-generation of the bestselling B2 sheet-fed digital press, today’s launch of the HP Indigo 18K Digital Press takes versatility, efficiency, and user-friendliness to new heights. As the commercial printing sector tackles significant competitive transformation, the need for presses and solutions that help printers enrich their offering and sustainably grow their business is critical.

The new HP Indigo 18K Digital Press handles the widest range of print applications ever produced with a single B2 digital press⁴ , accommodating diverse substrates and job types seamlessly. Advanced AI features like auto recovery and proactive alerts enhance productivity and simplify the entire production process, achieving up to 80% press availability⁵ within a single shift. Aligning with HP’s sustainability commitment, the Indigo 18K supports Enhanced Productivity Mode (EPM), delivering 24% energy savings per sheet⁶.

Innovating for Restricted Digital Security Printing

HP introduces the groundbreaking HP Indigo 7K Secure Digital Press, revolutionizing restricted digital security printing by executing security-focused print jobs in a single pass. Collaborating with Jura JSP, this cutting-edge sheet-fed press enables workflows tailor-made for security production lines, so customers can diversify their offerings, cater to a comprehensive range of security needs, and acquire new customers to grow their business.

“As the printing industry embraces automation and digitalization, HP Indigo empowers customers with unprecedented levels of productivity, efficiency, versatility, quality, and cost-effectiveness,” said Noam Zilbershtain, VP and GM, HP Indigo and Scitex. ” Our portfolio defines the industry standard for automation and sustainability, reflecting HP’s vision for the print production floor.”

“We’re also excited to announce that today HP will roll out general commercial availability of the HP Indigo V12 Digital Press, the fastest narrow web digital press on the market and first press to utilize new innovative LEPx technology⁷. Commercial availability comes after successful beta site installations including Brook + Whittle, a leader in sustainable packaging and digital printing in the US” continued Noam Zilbershtain, VP and GM, HP Indigo and Scitex.

Paving the Way for Success with Intelligent Factory Floors  

HP is defining the industry approach to automation through AI and robotics, launching a comprehensive print production automation ecosystem. Based on internal studies, customers who leverage automated processes achieve 51% higher volume and 80% more jobs per press compared to less automated customers. These customers also grow at an average of 27% year-over-year which is higher than the industry average. HP’s holistic approach combines effective presses with intelligent features from job submission to delivery.

Specific efficiency innovations include:

• PrintOS Production Beat Support for analog printing and finishing equipment, to enable customers to monitor their entire production floor, not only HP presses, capturing data in real time from analog equipment and digitalizing the entire production.
• HP Indigo PQ Maestro, offering an intelligent start-of-day wizard that optimizes press performance.
• Preflight, an AI-based decision-making tool that automatically predicts the suitability of the best-fit print mode by learning customers preferences.
• AAA 2.0 (Auto Alert Agent) advanced, a machine-learning algorithm that increases print productivity with zero human intervention⁸.

“By using AAA 2.0 we experience a significant reduction in production time, saving 1 hour for every 80,000 impressions. This not only enhances our operational efficiency, but also drastically reduces customer complaints and returns by 5-7%” highlighted Andreas Organzidis Head of Color Digital Printing, Elanders.

As the industry moves towards a more productive production floor, HP introduces Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) in collaboration with Movigo to automate media transfer, saving up to two hours per day, per press.

Developed in collaboration with printers and converters, today HP also announces the launch of the HP Sustainability Amplifier program enabling printers and converters to accelerate their sustainability agenda and offer more sustainable prints. The program, in collaboration with HP’s Sustainable Impact Strategy, aligns with HP’s commitment to renewable energy and reducing CO2 emissions.

Driving Continuous Innovation in Inkjet

An industry pioneer in inkjet technology for 40 years, HP PageWide Web Presses use HP’s proprietary thermal inkjet technology to deliver offset class quality and productivity with the benefits of digital printing.

“Since our first HP inkjet web press in 2009, HP customers⁹ have printed more than 1 trillion pages on PageWide. Along the way, we’ve invested in innovation to protect our customers’ investments and help them grow sustainably. Today we’re introducing the new HP PageWide Plus Package, to enhance productivity, automation, and economics,” said Annette Friskopp, VP and GM, HP PageWide.

The enhancements to HP PageWide Plus Package unveiled today include the following:

• Performance Economy Color (EC) Mode: Delivering print quality customers require for faster turnaround with less color ink and a 60% increase in productivity up to 800 fpm (244 mpm)¹⁰.
• General availability of Smart Workcell Controller: Offering significant advancements in intelligent automation and productivity improvements of up to a factor of 15x¹¹.
• On Press Color Profiling: Automation transforms color profiling into a less than 5 minutes job, a tenth of what it normally takes¹².

HP also announces two new additional capabilities expanding the versatility of the HP PageWide Advantage 2200 web inkjet press:

• Heavier Media Expansion: Enabling printers to use thicker substrates allowing them to capture more high value jobs up to 320 gsm/18pt¹³.
• Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) for Transactional Print Systems: Enabling printers to capture more speciality jobs and grow their business.

At drupa 2024 HP members of the global print community will be able to see firsthand eight automated production lines equipped with the latest innovation across HP Industrial, involving over 25 partner companies and incorporating more than 20 unique automation solutions.

¹ Compared to other cut-sheet digital technologies in the market, September 2023.

² Widest application range takes into consideration HP Indigo’s extensive substrate support and vast number of ElectroInks, based on press manufacturer’s published technical specifications, September 2023.

³ ECO printing mode offers sustainable gains with a thinner layer of ink. The estimated carbon footprint (calculated for press operations in France) includes main supplies, press energy consumption and supplies transportation to customer.

⁴ Widest application range takes into consideration HP Indigo’s extensive substrate support and vast number of ElectroInks, based on press manufacturer’s published technical specifications, September 2023.

⁵ Based on HP Indigo Digital Press time distribution mode.

⁶ 24% reduction in energy consumption per sheet in EPM, which requires 3 versus 4 separations.

⁷ Deliver the highest production speeds at 120 meters/min (400 linear feet) for your mid- and long-run jobs. Highest production speeds based on press specification comparison of major digital printing competitors as of September 2022.

⁸ Based on internal data: 3-minute savings for each detected artifact.

⁹ Based on HP Internal data collected in February 2024 through connected presses reporting data.

¹⁰ Compared to Performance, Performance HDK and Quality modes which all go up to 500 fpm (152 mpm), as published in HP’s public specifications (datasheets, website, etc.) as of February 2023. Actual speeds/press performance can be influenced by a variety of factors including press, dryer and digital front end configuration, print speed, media selection, print application, and environmental factors.

¹¹ Based on data collected by HP in February 2024 on actual and simulated customer job basket. Actual results may vary depending on workflow setup and job basket.

¹² This is compared to manual setup of new color profiles. HP ‘s data suggests on a production ready press that utilizing this new feature allows for the setup of a new profile in less than 5 minutes.

¹³ Heavy media requires HP PageWide Advantage 2200 with 3 Zone and Active Web Cooling Configuration. Press configuration supports 40-320 gsm and up to 18 pt./C1S. Customer application-specific testing advised for media between 40-60 gsm or 250-300 gsm. Media between 300-320 gsm/16-18 pt. can be supported with customer-specific application testing.

Source: HP Inc.