Enhanced Indigo and PageWide Presses Lead HP's Charge Toward Automation and Efficiency

At a pre-drupa press event recently, held just before Dcsoop in Indianapolis, Indiana, HP revealed a number of innovations that will make their debut in Düsseldorf later this year. Of particular interest are the updates and refreshes to the Indigo and PageWide press lines.

Anat Ruhrberg, the head of Commercial Product & Solutions for HP Indigo, noted that while analog printed pages are beginning to see a decline in terms of overall volume, digital pages are seeing a sharp increase, making it increasingly clear that no shop that wants to continue to be relevant and competitive in the years to come can afford to ignore the technology any more. Investments in digital presses are going to be key to capturing and retaining business.

That shift is playing out with the Indigo line, she noted, with data showing that consistently, as much as 50% of the pages being printed on the Indigo 100k are new volume. That said, 95% of all printed pages are still printed on analog presses, which  means the opportunity for growth is massive.

In that vein, HP will be launching a suite of refreshed Indigo presses at drupa, with the brand new platform and improvements across the entire line.

The HP Indigo 120k, Ruhrberg noted, is the most productive B2 press available, while the new HP Indigo 18k is being billed as the most versatile B2 press.

The HP Indigo 120k is an update of the popular Indigo 100k press, with a “massive R&D investment to develop new capabilities,” she said. In particular, the Indigo 120k can print 30% more sellable sheets per hour, which equates to as many as 2 million B2 sheets per month. While the entire platform has seen improvements, some of the key areas of improvement include:

• Increased reliability of parts
• Reduced jam rates, and shorter jam durations
• Reduced failure rates, and reduced downtime durations
• Zero restarts required
• Improved image quality consistency across entire runs
• Reduced duration of maintenance periods

It also uses an AI-based automation system for ease of use, with a much shorter training time required, and allowing one operator to run two presses. The interactive interface also got a wide number of upgrades and improvements, but the PQ Maestro AI-based software in particular will offer operators a quick and easy beginning of shift procedure, will automatically detect defects, and will even take step-by-step corrective actions for many basic errors without needing operator intervention. It will also be more proactive in communicating with operators, with alerts in real time to let them know when there is something they need to take action on right away to keep everything running. Ruhrberg noted that with the new system, almost 40% of recovery from failure events can be done autonomously by the press.

Finally, the Indigo 120k also comes with new print modes that allow operators to more finely tailor jobs, reducing the ink coverage and increasing speeds for jobs where color isn’t as critical. Enhanced Productivity Mode (ECM) and ECO mode both offer more options for printers to fine-tune the work they are doing — but the press also has an AI-based preflight tool that will learn preferences over time and can automatically predict which modes will be suitable for which jobs, although operators will be able to override that when necessary.

EPM, Ruhrberg noted, will deliver 33% more sellable sheets per hour and better economics, using just three colors instead of four, which will also mean reduced click charges for jobs run in that mode. That, in turn, will lead to as much as a 25% time savings on those jobs for faster turn around times, as well as a 25% energy savings per sheet, all while still offering a high quality image.

ECO mode takes that a step further, with a thinner layer of ink used, resulting in even further reductions in both the click charges and the energy usage per sheet. This is a perfect mode, Ruhrberg noted, for jobs with low image sensitivity, and is optimal for text-based pages.

The HP Indigo 18k, on the other hand, has seen the improvements focus on enabling new applications and job types, with an expanded gamut of media it can handle, including transparent media, thick duplex cards and tags up to 600 microns, and hybrid heat transfer substrates. This means the Indigo 18k can print applications like folding cartons, synthetics, heat transfer apparel, and light weight collateral, just to name a few.

HP also focused on improving the efficiency of the Indigo 18k, with many of the same innovations as the 120k, including automatic press recovery, a simplified user interface, an automated morning startup routine, and improvements across the board in reliability.

Beyond the Indio platform, HP is also bringing some innovation to the PageWide line as well, with the drupa launch of the HP PageWide Plus Package. The goal of the package is to enhance the productivity of the presses for PageWide presses:

• A new Performance Economy Color Mode (EC) which will allow customers to print at faster speeds for a slightly lower image quality, for jobs where color isn’t quite as critical. Yale Goldis, Commercial Products & Solutions Director, HP PageWide Industrial, noted that jobs printed in this mode can have as much as a 60% increase in speed and turnaround times, with productive up to 800 fpm.
• On-press color profiling will allow operators to check and manage color in as little as a tenth of the time it can take with traditional spectrophotometers. In fact, HP is noting a job can be profiled and running in as little as five minutes with the new system.
• There are a number of what HP is calling “intelligent automation” and productivity improvements being offered across the platform via more general availability of the Smart Workcell Controller.
• For the HP PageWide Advantage 2200 web inkjet press in particular, HP is expanding the capabilities of the press with a heavier media expansion, allowing printers to run thicker substrates, up to 320 gsm, allowing them to capture more high-value jobs and making the press more versatile. They have also added Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) for transactional print system, again expanding the versatility of what the press can produce, and allowing printers to move into new areas of growth.

Beyond the presses, HP has a few other innovations it is brining to Germany this year. The first is Production Beat, an expansion of HP’s Print Beat to the entire production floor. This allows PrintOS to monitor non-HP equipment, and gives operators a way to see the metrics of the entire floor in a single interface, rather than having to switch between them for different press manufacturers or equipment. It will also monitor real-time throughput and device status, allowing operators to see bottlenecks or performance issues across the entire fleet, which in turn will lead to smarter equipment and staffing decisions.

In addition, HP is also going to have its new Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) at drupa. This robot, billed as the best AMR on the market, is optimized for the HP Indigo, and has a small footprint, making it ideal to navigate often tight shop floors. It uses a number of sensors to allow it to navigate in real time without getting lost or stuck, and has the ability to micro-charge, where it will go to its docking station throughout the day for quick top-offs whenever it has a few minutes free. This allows it to operate all day, and allows for more consistent automation across both the production and finishing departments.

And these are just some of the innovations HP is planning for it’s booth in Hall 17 at drupa this year. It will have eight different automated production lines running at the event, including more than 25 partners companies, and more than 20 unique automation solutions on display.