HP today announced that McGowans Print Ltd has purchased Ireland's first HP Scitex FB7500 Printer to fulfil high demand for point-of-sale (POS) and point-of purchase (POP) items.
McGowans, based in Dublin, are one of Ireland's largest digital printing businesses and the purchase of the FB7500 adds to an existing wide-format line-up at the company's 60,000 square foot facility.
The company has been an HP customer for over 10 years and currently operates an HP Scitex TJ8300 Printer as well as two HP Latex Ink printers: the HP Scitex LX800 and HP Deignjet L65500 Printer, which it uses to produce a wide variety of large format applications including billboards, posters, event signage and building wraps. For general commercial print, such as business cards, flyers, booklets, leaflets and brochures, McGowans uses a range of HP Indigo digital printing technologies, including two HP Indigo press 5500s.
Serving print management and retail customers, the company decided to add to its arsenal of equipment after experiencing a significant increase in demand for POS and POP applications.
Highly productive with a three quarters automatic loading system and print speeds of up to 500m2 per hour - the equivalent of 95 full beds per hour (1) - the FB7500 is designed for fast paced production environments and for producing medium and long runs of POP applications within limited deadlines.
"Driven by the current economic situation, retailers are offering more promotions and are demanding quicker routes to market. Consequently, the POP market is our fastest growing area of production," said Mal McGowan, managing director, McGowans Print Ltd. "We decided to purchase an HP Scitex FB7500 as we believe that its three quarters automated loading system will increase our throughput, enabling us to achieve a quicker return on our investment and offer our customers fast turnaround POP and POS applications."
McGowans' HP Scitex FB7500 Printer includes 312 unique HP Scitex X2 piezoelectric printheads with 39,936 nozzles to deliver a 20kHz firing frequency for high image quality at high speeds. The FB7500 uses durable HP UV-curable inks for vibrant signage, ideal for eye-catching branded applications such as POP and POS work, exhibition graphics and backlit displays.
"As a business, our aim is to encourage people to migrate all screen runs to digital production, which meant that we needed to invest in equipment capable of producing high-quality applications," said McGowan. "In a market where money is currently tight, the FB7500 will allow us to offer our customers cost-effective solutions without compromising on print quality. We believe that this winning combination will help us to retain our existing customers and also develop new business."
More information is available at www.youtube.com/hpgraphicarts or follow HP on www.twitter.com/hpgraphicarts.
(1) Productivity print speeds are based on printing in Production 95 mode on 165x310cm (65 x 122in) sheets. This is measured from the time the first copy is initially loaded to when the last copy of the print run is unloaded.
