Inkjet Is Living Large (Format)

Meanwhile, B-Print and Display Limited is one of two UK firms to install an HP Scitex FB7600 Industrial Press in the second quarter of 2012. The company, established more than 30 years ago, made the investment in the new press—which prints up to 95 full-size sph in production speed and up to 55 full-size sheets/hr. with POP quality—to improve the speed and flexibility of its retail POS/POP offering. It prints up to 25mm thick on a range of media, such as foam PVC, PVC sheets, polystyrene (HIPS), and both corrugated and compressed cardboard. In addition, the new six-color HP FB225 UV-curable ink set provides excellent dot gain and an impressive color gamut up to 600-dpi resolution, while a new edge-to-edge printing feature ensures improved material usage and waste reduction.

“The HP Scitex FB7600 meets a wide range of our application requirements and ensures we maintain the lead we currently have on our competitors,” said Will Skelchy, managing director of B-Print and Display. “We were very impressed by the speed of the FB7600, which will significantly up the tempo in terms of production capacity and our ability to meet client deadlines,” Skelchy added. “Also notable is the vibrancy achieved in the printed output, which is always something we strive to improve upon.”

According to Skelchy, the HP Scitex FB7600 Industrial Press' scalable and modular platform was another important influencer in the company's decision to select the device—its first HP purchase. “The ability to upgrade in the future is an added benefit and gives us the flexibility and confidence to know that it will remain in step as our production expands,” he said.

The other UK company to add an HP Scitex FB7600 is full-service marketing/fulfillment provider FastAnt of Leicester. The existing Indigo digital press customer is a 10-year-old subsidiary of offset-litho print firm Taylor Bloxham Ltd.  FastAnt said it made the large-format investment to sharpen its service offering and deliver an in-house POP/POS capability to its retail customer base after reaching a “critical mass'” in the volume of work it previously had outsourced to other suppliers.

“One media type that we use in high amounts is corrugated board,” explained managing director Matthew Wennington. “I was stunned by the FB7600 press’s ability to handle horrible corrugated material, which proved troublesome for the other devices we looked at and required the operator to intervene continually to free it and re-set the printer. Part of the sample designs we submitted to HP included those printed onto corrugated board using the highest saturation level. The FB7600 printed around 100 straight-off in about an hour and without skipping a beat, so we knew if it could handle that, it could handle any substrate we threw at it,” Wennington added.