Palo Alto, Calif. – HP today announced that AccuLink, one of the top 100 trade print service providers (PSPs) nationwide, has installed an HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press and HP Exstream software to expand its portfolio of value-added solutions and meet growing demand for multipage, multicolor projects and variable-data printing.

AccuLink chose the HP Indigo 7000 to address the faster speeds and higher duty cycles needed to efficiently support increasing volumes of short-run multicolor work. With up to 50 percent of its short-run work focused on variable-data printing, the Greenville, N.C.-based PSP also required the high-volume performance the press offers.

"HP helps companies like AccuLink implement the most effective technologies to meet and exceed their customers' graphic communications needs," said Jan Riecher, vice president and general manager, Graphics Solutions Business – Americas, HP. "With the HP Indigo 7000 press and HP Exstream software, AccuLink meets the growing market demand for high-value, offset-quality variable-data printing."

Faster production with more accurate color
AccuLink executives chose the HP Indigo 7000 because they were impressed with the quality they achieved with an HP Indigo press 3050 the company installed several years ago. Now, AccuLink offers its customers more of digital printing's benefits with the higher-volume 7000-model press, such as print-on-demand flexibility, affordable and accurate color imaging, and support for a wide range of variable-data and static applications.

Printing at 14,000 pages per hour in one- or two-color mode, the HP Indigo 7000 made it possible for AccuLink to migrate one of its major projects – a job consisting of 40,000 two-color time planners – to digital production. Instead of printing one-color shells on its offset press and then running the 200-page books through its toner-based equipment, AccuLink now uses the HP Indigo 7000 to print black plus one PANTONE-licensed spot color.

Producing between one and 8,000 books at a time, the HP Indigo 7000 significantly reduced overall turnaround time for the project, printing work one and a half times faster than imprinting offset shells on toner-based equipment. The introduction of the HP Indigo solution at AccuLink also has improved quality, eliminating the blank pages that sometimes occurred when running offset-printed sheets through a digital device.

Variable-data flexibility with exact color matching
"Our customers' projects increasingly require shorter runs, more variability and exact Pantone color matching, and the HP Indigo 7000 is the only digital press in the world that can meet all of these demands," said Lindsay Gray, co-owner, AccuLink. "Whether our customers need simple highlight, exact Pantone or CMYK color, we can deliver the highest quality work at lower costs and with faster production times."

The 13 x 19-inch format of the HP Indigo 7000 and its support for a variety of substrates gives AccuLink maximum flexibility to print a wide range of projects, including highly variable glossy postcards, static sales sheets and book covers.

To better support its variable-data work, AccuLink migrated from its legacy document automation software to HP Exstream. The HP Exstream software maximizes the productivity of AccuLink's digital presses, allowing the company to assemble and process complex jobs at full-rated machine speeds, a capability that is typically challenging in variable-data printing. AccuLink currently prints full-color personalized mailings and political campaign mailings using its newly installed HP Exstream software paired with the HP Indigo 7000.

Opening new market possibilities
The new digital solution equips AccuLink to take on new business in full-color transactional, transpromo and personalized communications. With the integration of HP Exstream, AccuLink also can expand into new, high-growth markets for digital printing, such as finance and insurance.

HP Financial Services and the Digital Solutions Cooperative (Dscoop) users group have also helped AccuLink prosper. The company chose HP Financial Services to purchase the HP Indigo 7000 because of its competitive and tailored financing offer. As a trade printer participating with the Dscoop community, AccuLink has gained new HP Indigo print shop clients that require web-to-print storefronts – an offering AccuLink has been developing for the past 16 years.