Investments made and new ventures explored
Amid the uncertainty of Dusseldorf’s safety, with terror threats earlier in the week and a large fire breaking out today (the source of which has not been confirmed), it is not just the fantastic technology that is being talked about at Drupa.
Friday, 10 Jun 2016 14:23 GMT
David Orr, group managing director of Fencor Group (centre) celebrates with HP as he confirms the purchase of a HP Scitex 11000 Industrial Press
However, the exciting Drupa news has not slowed down even on day eight of the giant print event. There was much excitement on the HP stand just the day before as Easypack, manufacturers of point-of-purchase and packaging solutions, and part of the Fencor Packaging Group, invested in a HP Scitex 11000 Industrial Press. The press can print on many substrates including corrugated cardboard, synthetic paper, and PVC sheets, and has a production speed of 650m2/h.
David Orr, group managing director of the Fencor Group, says: “Without the partnership approach adopted by HP, none of this would have been possible. Their financial services arm has funded all three investments and they have been willing to exchange one of our older machines in the middle of its lease to ensure that we remain able to keep up with our customers’ expectations.”
Citing business as ‘transformed’, Orr notes that the company first installed a HP Scitex 7600 in April 2013 and then a year later installed a second. Easypack receives huge demand especially over the Christmas period, meaning they are always looking to invest in something that will boost productivity. Orr adds: “The great thing about HP is their approach, they’ve made it so easy, and they’re keeping us in the game.”
The great thing about HP is their approach, they’ve made it so easy, and they’re keeping us in the game”
C.P. Bourg took me round its stand to see every stage of its finishing solutions. Kristy Dong, commercial support Asia-Pacific at the company says: “The beauty of our machines is that we offer inline solutions that can be connected to popular printers from big brands.”
New to Drupa was the Bourg Preparation Module (BPM), the industry’s first scalable sheet preparation module. This allows digital printers to print everything onto one large sheet and then scale it down to a smaller size, with no operator intervention.
Dong says the company has had a good response from visitors to Drupa so far, and has found that those from Europe are most interested in the booklet maker while those from China are more interested in the perfect binder.
Print7 News has been out at Drupa 2016 gathering real opinion and insight from the exhibition. In this report: Landa achieves impossible dream, Konica reveals all, Mimaki triumph, and HP dominate
GMG Color was the next stop on my list and Paul Barnes, product management at the company explained more about its new colour conversion solutions, GMG OpenColor and GMG ColorPlugin. With six years of research and development behind it, OpenColor has patented technology enables accurate proof simulation of the overprinting effects of spot colours. It is ideal for those in the packaging sector who need perfect matched colours, every time. ColorPlugin in an innovative Photoshop tool that makes manual corrections unnecessary. It delivers separations for all the main standards and supports the user’s own profiles from other solutions such as OpenColor and ProfileEditor.
GMG Color’s software solutions aim to produce the same high quality print even on different substrates, demonstrated on its stand which shows prints on self-adhesive vinyl, fine art canvas, and more
For commercial printers, the company provides GMG ColorServer and GMG InkOptimizer, which is all about reducing the amount of ink used while keeping the same quality print.
Barnes says: “It’s great to get instant feedback from customers and hear what they need. It’s such an international show and it’s good interacting with other exhibitors and bringing everyone in our own team together.”
Last but not least, onto Roland DG where there was a plethora of technology to feast your eyes on. Michael Møller, head of service EMEA at Roland DG EMEA, says: “We introduced the TrueVis VG-640 and 540 earlier this year at FESPA. The TrueVis is a new venture for us and we are introducing it with a complete new print head technology. At the same time we are introducing our own ink system which is also a new venture for us. The benefits of the new ink is that it’s very fast drying, it has high brilliancy of colour, and the new print head technology allows us to use the printer with a higher quality and speed.”
After introducing the TrueVis VG-640 at FESPA earlier in the week, visitors got another chance to see it in action at this year’s Drupa
Roland DG also wowed visitors with an immersive virtual reality tour of its factory in Japan where passers by could see in more depth how Roland machines are made.
At the halfway point now for the show, it will not be until these companies return home that they will see the real impact of purchases made and business deals penned, but it is clear that visitors are impressed with the technology on offer and exhibitors are enjoying the customer interaction.
If you have an interesting story or a view on this news, then please e-mail
news@signlink.co.uk
Follow Jo on:
