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King Printing Boosts Productivity with HP Inkjet Web Press Upgrade
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- Palo Alto, Calif.
- July 26, 2011
King Printing Co., Inc. has become the first North American book
manufacturer to install a new HP T350 Color Inkjet Web Press speed
upgrade.
The high reliability, productivity and quality that the Lowell,
Mass.-based short-run book manufacturing specialist gained with its HP T300
Color Inkjet Web Press led to the upgrade decision. Now, King Printing's HP T350
Inkjet Web Press is 50 percent faster than the company's previous T300 model,
running at 600 feet per minute and producing up to 3,927 letter-size pages per
minute.
"The HP T350 gives King Printing unparalleled productivity on a
press that can produce more full-color pages per minute than competing digital
color solutions," said Aurelio Maruggi, vice president and general manager,
Inkjet High-speed Production Solutions, HP. "We want to make sure
progressive-minded businesses like King Printing get the most value possible
from their HP investments, which is why it is very important to make the T350
platform available as an upgrade to our existing customers."
The speed
increase gives King Printing distinct competitive advantages,
including:
- higher throughput to increase the breakeven point between
analog and digital printing – expanding the number of titles King can move
into cost-effective, low-inventory supply chain management; and
- lower costs per page in color printing, which help the firm
take advantage of dramatic growth in demand for digitally printed color books.
"When we
first installed the HP T300 last year, we gained a stable and very capable
production platform that allowed us to manage incredible volumes," said Adi
Chinai, managing director, King Printing. "With the T350, HP used its
technological leadership to make an even more robust platform, one that is
helping us re-write the economics of color in short-run publishing and book
manufacturing."
Forget the forklift
On-site T300 to T350
upgrades reflect a commitment to helping customers benefit from the fast-paced
development of HP solutions, mitigating the product obsolescence concerns
commonly found with advanced technology. For King Printing, the upgrade helped
to protect the value of the company's initial HP Inkjet Web Press investment so
it could capture additional business opportunities.
"Upgradability is a
concern with any capital expenditure, so it meant a lot to us that this was not
a 'forklift upgrade' that would require us to install an entirely new press,"
said Chinai. "You lose a lot of productivity when you have to remove a press,
install a new one, and then start the new press up.
"The upgrade with HP
was much simpler than installing a new press and it has had great results," he
added. "It was like adding a turbocharger to your car."
King Printing is
known as a progressive provider of short-run hard- and softcover books, and
operates a variety of digital and analog book production lines. The company has
stayed on the forefront of high-volume digital book printing ever since it
installed its first inkjet book manufacturing line 2007.
The HP T350
Color Inkjet Web Press continues King Printing's progressive business approach,
expanding what the company can offer its publisher clients.
"King
Printing stands out as one of the first book printers to adopt high-speed
continuous feed color inkjet printing, and have been perhaps the most
progressive and innovative book printing company in North America ever since,"
said industry analyst Andrew Tribute, managing director, Attributes Associates.
"The update of the HP T300 press to a T350 is another example of their key
understanding of the dynamics of the book publishing and printing market in
enhancing their capabilities to support their customers'
requirements.
"Adi Chinai and his team at King Printing have shown over
the years that book printing has a major future," Tribute added. "One that is
based on adopting the best digital printing
technologies."
High-quality results on standard media
With the
HP T350's versatile Scalable Print Technology thermal inkjet imaging system,
King Printing gets high-quality results on standard, uncoated paper stock, as
well as on inkjet coated papers designed for high-volume production.
The
HP T350 offers attractive capital acquisition and operating costs, including the
ability to purchase consumables as needed without click charges. An HP
SmartStream Ultra Print Server installed at King Printing moves imposed pages to
the HP T350 at full-press speed. The print server also integrates with the
highly automated, Adobe PDF prepress workflow King Printing uses to manage work
on all its presses.
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