HP today announced that Hong Kong-based CTPS has agreed to purchase two HP T410 Color Inkjet Web Presses as well as an HP Indigo W7250 and 10000 Digital Press.

The new presses will significantly advance the digital printing capability of the company, optimize supply chain for its customers and enable it to develop new business applications. Efficiency gains by the digital presses will help the company address increasing labor costs in China.

CTPS executives signed the agreement today at drupa 2012, where the HP T410 and the HP Indigo 10000 are making their worldwide debut. The new HP T410 solution, which has a 1,066-millimeter (42-inch) width, a 183 meters-per-minute (600 feet-per-minute) color printing speed and a 244 meters-per-minute (800 feet-per-minute) monochrome printing speed, is HP’s widest and most productive digital press.

The new HP Indigo 10000 Digital Press is the first offset-quality digital press in a B2 size format (750 x 530 millimeters [mm] / 29.5 x 20.9 inches), enabling greater improvements in productivity and higher value application capabilities.

The new presses will help CTPS offer additional capacity as well as new product offerings needed to meet publishers’ evolving demands at a time of significant change.

Building a strategic advantage in publishing with efficient productivity
While China remains one of the largest manufacturers of books for export, the country’s growing economy is spurring increased domestic demand for books and commercial printing. The economic expansion also puts pressures on wages in China, leaving book manufacturers like CTPS to seek more cost-effective solutions to produce a wider variety of titles as well as enabling short runs to respond to changing consumption patterns.

“It can involve up to 30 people per shift to complete an end-to-end production run of books on our offset production, compared with three to five people for an HP Inkjet Web Press solution.” said Peter Tse, chief executive officer, CTPS. “That makes a big difference to our bottom line and helps us combat offset rising labor costs.”

The new presses will help CTPS significantly expand its existing production capacity as well as open up many new business possibilities for the company. With the HP Indigo 10000 digital press, the company can now take on jobs traditionally produced using analog offset presses and still retain compatibility with its current finishing equipment.

The HP Indigo W7250 digital press, with its high speed, wide media capabilities, efficient 12.48 x 38.58 inch image format and range of finishing solutions, will enable CTPS to offer its customers a broader range of high quality products and services such as photo specialty, direct mail, transpromo and other variable data printing applications.

Continued growth with HP solutions
CTPS chose HP’s solution based on the success of its first HP digital book printing investment—a production line that includes an HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press, and an HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press used to produce covers for digitally printed books. Installed last April, CTPS’s HP T300 was the first HP Inkjet Web Press in the Asia Pacific region. It also has become an important, and efficient, solution at CTPS for short and medium titles that are more expensive to produce on offset presses.

“With the level of quality we get from the T300, we have been able to prove to our customers that digital can compliment offset so they are comfortable switching production methods in order to optimize their supply chain,” said Tse. “Because of that, it is now cost-effective to produce print runs of as little as 200 copies, which has opened up a lot of potential new business opportunities for us.

“Today’s sale comes one year after CTPS’s first HP Inkjet Web Press installation, and it speaks volumes about HP’s ability to deliver on its promises,” said Aurelio Maruggi, vice president and general manager, Inkjet High-speed Production Solutions, HP. “When a valued client like CTPS comes back to us with such a significant order for both our Inkjet and Indigo technologies at an important trade show, it reflects on the technology, consultative approach and expertise the HP team brings to market.”

More information is available at www.hp.com/go/HPdrupa12, www.hp.com/go/drupa and through the HP Graphic Arts Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/hpgraphicarts and YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/hpgraphicarts. Join or follow the conversation using the #HPdrupa hashtag.