Later this year, each firm will install an HP Indigo 30000 Digital Press. The sheet-fed HP Indigo 30000 Digital Press has the ability to print on any paperboard (coated, uncoated, metallized) or synthetic boards up to 29 inches by 21 inches in size and 24 points (600 microns) in thickness. As HP Indigo “launch customers,” the two converters will be among the first in the world to install a 30000 press.
A leading paperboard and rigid packaging company, ASG delivers packaging solutions for the world’s premier consumer brands. It also serves the health and beauty, pharmaceutical, home entertainment, consumer electronics, confectionery and specialty foods, spirits, and sporting goods markets.
“HP Indigo, with its high print quality, variable-data capability, and speed, gives us a digital platform that will make us more competitive by expanding our service offerings with high-value digital package production,” says Mark Caines, CEO Americas, ASG. Once the new HP Indigo Digital Press is in place, customers will experience immediate benefits with product packaging design and production, says Caines. “Our customers are excited about the possibilities,” adds Caines.
The HP Indigo 30000 Digital Press will allow ASG to offer customers new value-added packaging options and introduce a solution for economical printing of short- to medium-run jobs.
ASG will pair its HP Indigo 30000 with an inline coater by TRESU Group, the leading global manufacturer of carton coating systems and flexo printing lines, for application of a protective aqueous or UV coating required for folding cartons. TRESU Group developed the inline coater, the TRESU iCoat 30000, specifically to meet the needs and fit the operation of the HP Indigo 30000, giving ASG a competitive edge in the quickly growing packaging market.
MPS, meanwhile, is a leading packaging manufacturer for the cosmetics, healthcare, horticulture, media, and consumer markets. The firm will use the new HP Indigo 30000 to expand its digital print offerings for the packaging market and to better address the needs of its folding carton customers, which account for 60 to 70 percent of its annual business.
“Since first seeing the HP Indigo 30000 at drupa 2012, I have truly believed that this press has the functionalities to fulfill a market gap in digital print that has lingered for years,” says John Cote, vice president of innovation and manufacturing technology at MPS. “As the needs of our customers have evolved in complexity, size, and scope, we at MPS have searched for a press that is flexible, end-to-end in workflow, and supportive of critical data-driven brand security measures without sacrificing quality. The HP Indigo 30000 Digital Press is the only solution that we have found to effectively meet all of these criteria and provide us with the added values of cost savings and efficiency.”
At MPS, the press’s capabilities will be enhanced with an embedded ESKO-driven front end and an integrated TRESU iCoat 30000, which contains both aqueous and UV spot coating functionalities. Combined, these solutions will optimize MPS’s supply chain to help increase efficiency, boost revenues, and improve its environmental scorecard while also facilitating the printing of numerous high-value security, variable-data, and customer-engaging marketing applications.
“Digital printing will help converters and print service providers to fundamentally modernize the packaging market,” says Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager, Indigo Div., HP. “The end-to-end flexibility, versatility and efficiency of the HP Indigo 30000 Digital Press will help fulfill the needs and pressures of a growing and diversifying industry.”
