Dow Industries Buys HP Indigo Digital Press to Cost-effectively Meet Customer Demand

HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced that Dow Industries, a label converting firm based in Wilmington, Mass., is meeting surging customer demand for versioned, "multi SKU” product labels with a newly installed HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press.

The six-color label and packaging press is more cost-effective than the firm’s analog flexographic presses to handle the growing volume of jobs that require print-run changes to accommodate multiple SKUs. Digital presses like the HP Indigo WS6000 let clients reduce the set-up time and expenses for each change, compared with analog presses.

"The real thrust behind digital is our customers’ increasing need to provide a greater number of SKUs, which is why we’ve brought in our fourth HP Indigo press with the new WS6000,” said Walter Dow, chief executive officer and owner, Dow Industries. "The press’s higher volumes let more of our customers gain the advantages HP Indigo digital technology brings – from its ability to reduce client inventory needs, to its superior image quality.”

Tremendous opportunity for Dow’s health and beauty clients

Now, more of the brands Dow Industries serves – including those in the health and beauty industry – can use digital printing to pursue sales opportunities.

High-volume digital production on the HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press can make it affordable for these businesses to move even very long label runs for a specific product into multiple SKUs, with targeted designs that appeal to different geographies, ethnicities and more. When done strategically, this can result in a boost in overall product sales – making digital converting an essential growth strategy for both Dow Industries and the brand owners it serves.

"The multi-SKU phenomenon is a key reason digital printing is driving a transformation in labels and package converting,” said Jan Riecher, vice president and general manager, Graphics Solutions Business – Americas, HP. "Companies like Dow Industries are bringing more value to the supply chain with the high-volume productivity and tremendous production flexibility the HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press offers.”

The HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press prints up to 98 feet per minute in four-color mode and is compatible with a broad range of media – from thinner flexible packaging substrates, to label and shrink-sleeve media, to folding carton material. With its high-volume capabilities, the HP WS6000 is designed to be more cost-effective than analog printing on up to 80 percent of the label jobs converters typically produce.⁽¹⁾

HP Indigo presses are the only digital label and packaging solutions that use true PANTONE®-licensed spot-color inks or offer four-, six- and seven-color PANTONE-licensed spot color emulation, giving converters the ability to meet their customers’ demanding brand color standards. The high quality, productivity and flexibility of HP Indigo have made it the industry’s leading digital press brand and one of the best-selling label and packaging press brands overall.⁽²⁾

Fast growth with award-winning HP Indigo digital printing

Dow Industries, which also operates analog flexographic and rotary screen printing presses, has seen its fastest growth come with the help of HP Indigo digital printing. The company has been continually investing in and upgrading its HP Indigo capabilities since 1995. In 2007, Dow Industries became the first company to win a converting industry competition best-in-show award with a digitally printed label.⁽³⁾

The HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press will be featured in HP booth 3225 at the PACK EXPO International tradeshow, held Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 at McCormick Place in Chicago.

More information about HP Indigo label and packaging presses is available at www.hp.com/go/gsb or through the HP Graphic Arts Twitter feed.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

(1) HP internal data. Calculation based on 30 labels per meter.

(2) HP internal data based on data from Pira (2006), InfoTrends (2009) and Tarsus (2010).

(3) packagePRINTING magazine 2007 Excellence Awards.

PANTONE is the property of Pantone, Inc.

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