I recently noticed two press releases announcing “sold” installations of HP Indigo 10000 presses, one in commercial print at Bennett Graphics, and one in—surprisingly—packaging in Avery Dennison’s Retail Branding and Information Solutions (RBIS) in Asia.  There are other HP Indigo 10000’s out there from beta installations and early sales, including two at Sandy Alexander. These two, however, were interesting because Bennett Graphics is a smaller family-owned printer, and Avery Dennison is using the presses as part of its transition to digital for its retail label and tag business that supports the apparel industry. 

Bennett Graphics, located in Tucker GA, found itself facing the challenge of producing shorter, personalized runs with tight turn times and certainly is not alone in that regard.  David Bennett, President of Bennett Graphics, reports that his company acquired the first general release HP Indigo 10000 after the beta process.  Bennett has experience with HP Indigos, having purchased a 7000 four years ago, upgrading it to a 7600.  He reports that while the Indigo 10000 is post-beta, it still has a few kinks to work out.  “Right now the press is CMYK only, and doesn’t offer white or clear ink,” he reports, “but it does have 7 ink bays and offers Enhanced Production Mode (EPM) which allows printing of black using CMY, thereby reducing the amount of ink, click charges and cycle time required to print.”

Bennett reports that about 30% of the company’s revenue is digital, but profit margins on digital are almost double those related to offset. He adds, “We continue to see pricing pressure on offset work, which is for the most part transactional.  As I looked at where I wanted the business to be in two, three, five years, I knew I wanted to be more diversified, differentiate myself from the competition and become less dependent on sheetfed offset.  I saw the HP Indigo 10000 as a way to accomplish several of those goals and to allow us to be able to offer unique products to our clients as well as slide more work from offset to digital.”