PALO ALTO, Calif. - HP today announced that it has reached the 100^thinstallation milestone for the HP Indigo W7200 series Digital Press. The press was installed by District Photo Inc., helping the company to significantly expand its capacity due to increased customer demand.

District Photo Inc. is the one of the world’s largest direct-to-consumer photo fulfillment operations in the world. Since the company acquired its first HP Indigo digital press in 2007, District Photo Inc. has largely increased its HP Indigo fleet to meet growing demand for photo specialty products.

“We have been experiencing increased customer demand for customized photobooks and yearbooks,” said Bob Friend, executive vice president and general manager, District Photo, Inc. “As a longtime user of HP Indigo digital presses, we trust the technology for our business because of its high image quality, high productivity and reliability, as well as its proven track record in supporting and helping to expand our business.”

The continuous-fed HP Indigo W7200 series enables the high productivity required for photo peak season production. The versatile press features a large image size to allow efficient imposition of a wide variety of applications.

The success of the HP Indigo W7200 series in the photo space is based on two key factors: HP Indigo’s renowned quality and the exceptionally high productivity enabled by the web-fed platform. Additional examples of companies achieving success in the photo space using the HP Indigo W7200 series include PhotoBox and many other leading suppliers of photo books.

Versatility of press benefits a range of print providers

The HP Indigo W7200 series is also widely used in the publishing market, as well as for high-volume commercial print applications. In particular, it has proven success for short-runs of high-quality publications in categories such as education, scientific, technical, medical and manuals. In addition, the press produces art books and coffee table books.  For example, Netherlands-based Printforce is printing science, technical and medical journals, magazines and books on four HP Indigo W7250 digital presses. In addition, Germany-based Elanders is printing car manuals on four HP Indigo W7250 digital presses.

Key benefits in the publishing space include the larger image size, which allows signature folding for quality book binding. In addition, finishing solutions, such as the inline signature folder (16 or 32 page signatures) and inline cutter/stacker that delivers book pages ready for binding, support high production efficiencies. This eliminates manual steps in the finishing process and reduces the overall cost of producing a finished book.

The press also is able to print on any off-the-shelf paper with its Inline Priming unit. In addition, many publishing customers use the presses’ Enhanced Productivity Mode (EPM), which provides a 33 percent faster throughput for color pages, by using only three inks instead of four.⁽¹⁾ These features increase overall productivity and decrease total cost of ownership.

The HP Indigo W7200 series also is widely used for direct mail and transactional-promotional applications. For example, IBS, one of the largest transactional bureaus in Mexico, is extensively using three HP Indigo W7200 series Digital Presses for these applications with high productivity and utilization due to EPM. 

“The achievement of installing the 100^th HP Indigo W7200 series digital press speaks to the growth opportunity our customers recognize in high volume digital print applications,” said Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager, Indigo Division, HP. “With these presses installed across 50 customer sites and in more than 20 different countries, we look forward to helping customers continue to grow their businesses.” 

Additional information about HP Indigo digital printing solutions is available atwww.hp.com/go/HPIndigoPresses, on the HP Graphic Arts YouTube channel,www.youtube.com/hpgraphicarts, or through the HP Graphic Arts Twitter Feed,www.twitter.com/hpgraphicarts.