OnDemand Open House introduces Australian publishing to the new HP Indigo

A personalised 920mm-long invitation lobbed into the mailboxes of the elite of Melbourne’s publishing and marketing community last week announcing Bruce Peddlesden’s latest digital innovation.

It resulted in a large turnout of regular customers and others intrigued by the promise of the new HP Indigo W7200 commercial digital press. At the company’s Port Melbourne premises they witnessed what Peddlesden terms the “start of a new age of publishing production in Australia.”

“It was a brilliant response. Almost 80 per cent of our clients turned up and we learned a lot from them. I love talking to customers because they educate printers on what their needs are. Our job is to listen and go away and come up with a solution,” he said.

The high-powered HP Indigo W7200 with its Hunkeler pre and post-press paper handling systems is over 19 metres long and is the fastest production unit of its kind in the country.
It reinforces OnDemand’s reputation as the largest digital printer in Australia when added to the two existing HP Indigo 7000 presses and ranks of Océ high-speed mono engines.

According to Peddlesden, the new capacity and flexibility of format means publishers no longer have to look overseas for short-run quality books. “This is a brand new concept where publishers can have up to five thousand or more volumes printed. They can have a variety of formats such as A4 landscape. Previously if they wanted anything more than a thousand books they were penalised by having to go to offset,” he said.

The new roll-fed, dual-engine unit uses Australian Paper reels and thanks to its inline coater can print on almost any type of web substrate. It is rated to produce up to seven million A4-size colour images or 30 million monochrome A4 images per month. As supplied by the Currie Group, the new press will be used predominantly to produce books, periodicals and educational materials, but Peddlesden said there are a variety of other revenue streams the company will pursue.

“Our growth and market advantage over the last 25 years has always been based on offering our clients the latest technology and delivering the best quality. Working with the latest technology means you can produce work faster, more competitively and value-add by creating new options for your clients,” he said.

“Digital print has been growing for many years, and even with the economic woes the world has been through in the last couple of years, digital print still managed to grow. In fact the near-collapse of the global financial sector forced many companies to review their purchasing to cut costs. In this environment digital in most cases proved a cost saving for them over the way they had previously been producing print. Being able to print short runs quickly and cost effectively enabled companies to continue to communicate with their markets, and to be more targeted.”

A long-time HP and Currie Group customer Peddlesden said his relationship with the two companies has “helped us to continue our strong growth. It is important to have a supplier that knows our objectives and can work with us to help us move forward. We’ve always been adopters of new technology, but it’s not enough to put in a new machine, you have to have a strategy to drive sales for that equipment and to enhance the service you offer. HP understands this proposition and has created a press that delivers outstanding results,” he concluded.