RPI purchases HP Indigo W7200 digital press

RPI, a US producer of photobooks and other photo-speciality products, is expanding its capacity with an HP Indigo W7200 digital press adapted for the photographic printing market.

The company, based in Seattle, purchased the Indigo W7200 press at the recent Ipex 2010 trade show in the UK.

The press is scheduled for delivery in July and will be installed with an inline Hunkeler POPP6 finishing system.

RPI offers automated manufacturing for the consumer make-on-demand printed products market, including photobooks, invitations, calendars, stationery and business cards.

To fulfil orders globally from retailers, the company currently uses 16 5000-series HP Indigo presses, as well as an Indigo WS6000 digital press that prints book covers and dust jackets.

The new Indigo W7200 will expand the capacity that RPI needs in the photo-speciality market's annual peak production season.

According to Susan Jackson, vice-president of operations at RPI, the Indigo W7200 will enable the efficient production of single print-on-demand products, provide redundancy for the company's book-cover production and print several times faster than the smaller presses.

The enhanced Indigo W7200 press prints 240 four-colour A4 pages per minute at volumes up to 7.5 million pages per month.

It also includes new linked colour management utilities on both of its print engines for more accurate, consistent photo prints.

At Ipex, HP demonstrated, on the W7200 model six-colour photo imaging with light cyan and light magenta inks, a technique that offers photo-realistic quality with reduced granularity and smoother images and tone transitions.

The photo-customised Indigo W7200 to be delivered to RPI also includes new, inline lamination features.

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