Challenge

• Grow business by lowering costs, offering faster customer response times and expanding customer offering.
• Increase printing speed and capacity by increasing digital printing capabilities.

Solution

• 2 x HP Scitex TJ8550 Printers for cost-effective digital printing of banners, window graphics and posters (upgraded from HP Scitex TJ8500 Printers).
• HP Designjet L65500 Printer for outdoor applications with reduced impact on the environment.
• HP Scitex FB6100 Printer for POS displays and other rigid printing applications
• 2 x HP Designjet Z6100 Printers for short-run and photo-realistic applications, and small-size signage.
• 2 x HP Designjet 5500 Printers for easy, photo-like quality for prototyping and customer proofing.
• HP SmartStream Designer solution for VDP for versioned campaigns.

Results

• Short run digital printing capacity is up 50-60%, without extra operator hours, with new HP Scitex TJ8550 Printer.
• Higher digital cross-over - Graphic Tech has shifted more projects to digital printing, increasing profitability and reducing environmental impact through lower wastage.
• Lower prepress costs and 8-12% lower ink usage achieved within weeks of installation.
• Faster response time and higher customer satisfaction due to 40% faster POP mode printing speed with no reduction in quality.
• Variable data printing with HP SmartStream Designer attracts orders from new and existing customers, reduces operating expenses and speeds turnaround time.

Upgraded digital printing capacity means more business without additional resources or costs

BARCELONA, Spain, 10 March 2010 - Established over twenty years ago as a one-man operation, Graphic Tech is now a leading Southern California-based full services printing firm. Over the years, it has built a reputation for uncompromising excellence with every project, from concept through to delivery - a commitment that has underpinned its constant growth.

As business continues to expand, Graphic Tech continuously invests in new and advanced technology to stay ahead of the market and increase its printing capacity without compromising the quality solutions it offers to customers. Recently, Graphic Tech upgraded its two HP Scitex TJ8500 Printers to new-version HP Scitex TJ8550 Printers. The new printer version offers faster printing and improved ink coverage, among other enhancements. As early as six months after installing the printers, Graphic Tech had already gained important business benefits.

"The core of the HP Scitex TJ8550 Printer is speed and in POP mode, we're achieving approximately 40% higher print speed," says Jim Blee, chief operating officer at Graphic Tech. "This means that we can process larger jobs on the upgraded digital printers than we would have been able to print on our screen presses. So we can now efficiently shift more projects from screen printing to digital printing. The printers also facilitate shorter time on press and use less ink, which means that we can drastically increase our customer response times while reducing costs. And, all of this without any reduction in quality, which is very significant."

Moving to a new level of productivity

Like its predecessor, the HP Scitex TJ8550 Printer delivers a perfect balance between quality and speed. With high-quality, six-colour UV-based printing, it speeds its way through high-volume jobs on virtually any media - providing superb results for a wide range of applications.

"In the case of banner production for large format posters, and window decals and graphics, the incredible and impressive quality of the HP Scitex TJ8550 Printer means that high quantity images can be produced on a variety of substrates for a wide variety of applications, including posters, transit work and vinyl banners," says Blee.

"This machine moves you beyond traditional typewriter-style inkjet (carriage) devices and into a different production environment. It's not for very small quantities, but if you are going to produce large projects then it's an ideal machine for a high-production shop. We have a specific customer whose printing jobs were always done with screen printing due to their size and length, and now we have shifted that client to the HP Scitex TJ8550 Printer permanently."

Superb print quality with digital speed

With the HP Scitex TJ8550 Printers, Graphic Tech can offer its customers major benefits in terms of cost and time savings. For banner production for large format posters, window decals and graphics, Graphic Tech's short run digital printing capacity was raised from 120- 150 sheets to 300 sheets in a run - an increase of 50- 60%. This was significant in the case of a national fast food chain that required a large amount of promotional POP signage for the ongoing marketing testing of 20- 36 different menu items.

Blee explained that the HP Scitex TJ8550 Printers were chosen for the job because of their quality, speed, cost effectiveness, and support for roll-to-sheet materials. "Without the HP Scitex TJ8550 Printers, we would have used traditional screen format printers with exceptionally high operating costs and extremely long production times. This would have been dramatically expensive relative to the small number of components that were required."

The job involved printing 418 m² (4500 ft²) of window decals on pressure-sensitive vinyl and 186 m² (2000 ft²) of banners, with four to six different promotional messages. According to Blee: "The project required a high level of quality and colour management. The most challenging part was matching the colour of the printing to the commercial proofs. We were able to achieve this because of the wide colour gamut of the ink used with the HP Scitex TJ8550 Printer, and the pigment hues that we could manipulate and colour manage effectively. We were given four to five days to print after receiving the finalised files and it only took us one and a half shifts."

Stepping into the future with HP and digital Printing

The HP Scitex TJ8550 Printers also help Graphic Tech to reduce the environmental impact of its printing in terms of reduced waste, and increase profitability due to more efficient printing processes, economically viable short-run jobs and minimised overruns. "One of the major environmental and economic benefits is that less consumable waste is produced - that is, less make-ready, chemistry and press-ready elements as compared to screen printing," says Blee. "Digital UV printing is perceived by our customers as being more environmentally friendly than solvent printing."