Inkjet & Digital Printing
Prime Group Invests in the Latest HP Indigo Technology
Monday 07. July 2008 - HP today announced that Prime Group has invested in an HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press, making it one of the first companies to purchase the equipment in the UK.
The deal was signed at drupa 2008, and demonstrates Prime’s commitment to investing in leading technology. Based in Nottingham, Prime has operated a digital printing department for almost five years and has been an HP Indigo press user from the start. The company produces a wide range of commercial products for its blue-chip customers, specialising in complex variable data print (VDP) and unusual short-run applications such as personalised books and high-quality calendars.
Prime’s HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press will be optimised for production by a new workflow solution, the HP SmartStream Production Pro Print Server. This system will enable the company to scale up production, and facilitates the addition of presses to the centralised workflow network in the future. Due to the large amount of VDP work the company processes, Prime decided to invest in an enhanced RIP from HP to ensure that high volumes of data are processed quickly and efficiently.
“Our HP Indigo presses have had significant impact on our bottom line over the last five years and we believe the key to a successful future lies in the continued investment in new technology from HP Indigo,” said Jon Tolley, director, Prime Group. “The new press will allow us to produce more work at greater speeds and higher quality, but deliver a lower cost per page. It makes perfect business sense to us. Not only can we produce more complex work for our customers, we can also pass the financial benefits down the supply chain.”
The HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press will enable Prime to move into new markets such as high-quality direct mail and expand its existing portfolio of products in the marketing collateral, personalisation and book areas. The company recently worked with personalisation specialist, Penwizard, to produce a series of personalised Noddy books for HarperCollins on its existing HP Indigo press. The complexity of the data and image quality required to maintain brand integrity was of vital importance to the project.
“HarperCollins and Penwizard have been so impressed with the quality of the Noddy books that they have commissioned three major new brands for launch in 2008. When our HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press is installed, we will move these applications to the press, ensuring that our customer is receiving products of the highest possible quality,” said Tolley.
“The company’s continued investment in HP Indigo presses stems from our desire to constantly improve and innovate our product offering and services to our customers. Prime has won two awards for product innovation in the last year and we intend to use our new digital press to win many more in the coming years.”
The new press will be installed later this year to operate alongside Prime’s other digital press, an HP Indigo press 5000.