“Despite the challenges of the past year, Indigo customers have continued to lead the transformation of the graphic arts industry. Our R&D labs continue to deliver on our promise, releasing new capabilities, products and solutions to support the growth of our customers,” said Haim Levit, HP Indigo vice-president and general manager, in a keynote address to Dscoop Fusion, a global gathering of HP Graphic Arts print service providers and solution partners with over 8000 members. 

Since its introduction last year, HP Indigo’s new commercial portfolio gained significant momentum worldwide, including long-term investments in new fleets by Cimpress and Shutterfly. The portfolio empowers commercial printers to continue expanding the digital transformation in the market. The HP Indigo 100K Digital Press – the most productive digital B2 press in the market3 – is leading this trend with more than 30 units already installed, enabling commercial printers to shift greater volumes from offset to digital. 

To drive digital expansion in commercial print even further, HP Indigo has announced a new set of features, expanding the capabilities of its Drupa portfolio.

The new Automatic Alert Agent 2.0 for HP Indigo Series 4 presses (HP Indigo 12000 and 15K) is an inline inspection system that scans every printed sheet and compares it to its digital reference, automatically identifying print defects. AAA 2.0 now automatically diverts defective sheets to scrap and reprints them, all in real time with no human intervention, and no interruption to production.

The new Fine Line RIP and press computing infrastructure deliver superior capabilities for small solid text and fine lines, producing the sharpest Kanji fonts and complex security patterns. 

The company also introduced the new HP Indigo 6P Digital Press, a narrow-web press dedicated for photo and publishing applications. This press expands the capabilities of the Indigo 6800p with a series of innovations for productivity and versatility, including a larger, 320x980mm image area and faster RIP. 

Hypergrowth in HP Indigo labels and packaging 

Label and packaging converters operating HP Indigo digital presses are continuing to outgrow the market, driven by trends such as SKU proliferation, and the ability to optimise supply chains with on-demand printing and fast turnaround. In flexible packaging, in particular, worldwide HP Indigo production has experienced hypergrowth in the past year of more than 50%4, with folding cartons and labels customers also enjoying strong double-digit growth. 

To support this growth momentum, HP Indigo announced commercial availability of additional products and capabilities in its 2020 portfolio for labels and packaging production. Value packs and options are also available for HP Indigo 20000, 30000 and 6000 series users, allowing them to protect their investments and enjoy new capabilities on their presses. 

HP Indigo 35K for folding cartons

The HP Indigo 35K Digital Press, the new flagship press for high-value folding carton production built on the market-proven HP Indigo 30000, is now commercially available. The new press provides premium colour and print quality now with 40% overall higher productivity5 thanks to faster job changeover, colour accuracy with Spot Master, and a more robust paper path from the feeder to the coater.

In addition, to support productivity in digitally printed packaging, HP announced the release of HP Indigo’s breakthrough Spot Master colour automation technology, the industry’s fastest time to colour. 

Spot Master uses a new patented algorithm for fast and accurate colour matching, enabling converters to reach brand colours within five minutes, with an accuracy of less than two delta E, and less than three metres of waste. As a result, Spot Master delivers consistent, uniform colour across the entire print frame and each label or package looks the same no matter when or where it is printed.  

Spot Master is now available on both the HP Indigo 25K and 35K, and will be available for the HP Indigo 6K later this year. 

Opportunities for digital security printing  

HP also announced HP Indigo Secure, a new suite of never-before seen security and brand protection solutions, to help security printers and print service providers protect their customers from counterfeiters and other product threats. HP Indigo Secure is a set of solutions including hardware, software, media, and inks for security printing and brand protection, based on proprietary HP Indigo LEP technology and industry-leading partner solutions.

HP Indigo 6K Secure Press is HP Indigo’s first secure digital press designed especially for the security printing market. The press is a one-pass, end-to-end security printing solution featuring multiple security layers in collaboration with Jura JSP. The press is available for certified security printers. 

New HP PrintOS applications

HP PrintOS helps customers to get the most out of their presses, simplify and automate production, and innovate and grow. HP announced several new solutions that further improve production efficiency.

The PrintOS Learn, a hybrid learning experience combining on-demand and live virtual courses, face-to-face training, and best in class technology with interactive training modules. PrintOS Learn offers a personalised and continuous learning experience, based on Indigo equipment and user profiles.