• Application innovations drive customer growth in new digital label and packaging markets.
• HP Indigo GEM enters beta customer testing and announces first U.S. customer.
• HP Indigo 6900 enhancements, including a never seen before brand protection and security offering.
• HP Indigo 20000 new features and solutions help converters be efficient and grow.
• Pack Ready for Labels solution for high durability is extended to the entire labels and packaging portfolio.
• HP SmartStream Collage, a new enhancement of the ground-breaking HP SmartStream Mosaic, takes automated variable imaging design to the next level.
• HP Production Pro for digital front end (DFE) now supported across labels and packaging portfolio.
• HP PrintOS advancements open new markets and increase efficiency and productivity through automation.

CHICAGO, Sept. 24, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) at Labelexpo Americas 2018 will demonstrate its latest innovations across the HP Indigo Digital Press portfolio, a suite of solutions designed to create profitable growth and new business opportunities for labels and packaging converters.

Converters need to differentiate themselves by gaining supply chain efficiency, increasing speed to market, and using business innovation to open new markets. They also need the right technology to evolve and educate brands on the impact labels and packaging innovations have on customer engagements. The continuing innovation stream across the HP Indigo Digital Press portfolio enables converters to grow and transform their business. HP Indigo’s customer print volumes doubled over the last four years, outpacing the market because of its extensive portfolio, along with the industry’s widest range of functional inks, brand protection tools, and converting and workflow management capabilities. This allows converters to produce nearly any type of label and packaging digitally.

“Digital adoption is growing, and converters need more sophisticated solutions to differentiate themselves and effectively add value to brands,” said Dave Prezzano, vice president and general manager, Graphics Solutions Business, Americas, HP Inc. “HP Indigo’s platform for digital labels and packaging production empowers converters to embrace the possibilities of print to create, innovate, and grow their business profitably. By optimizing supply chain and meeting sustainability goals all while helping brands engage with their consumers with state-of-the-art automated design and production management tool – HP Indigo is helping them, and their customers, thrive in a changing world.”

At Labelexpo Americas 2018 at Booths #3226 and #3429, from September 25-27, HP is demonstrating the #wonderofprint and its amazing possibilities with the company’s latest solutions that are transforming businesses all over the world. Be inspired in Brandland, put labels through resistance tests at the Pack Ready for labels station, see HP SmartStream Collage in action, and learn about HP Indigo’s never-seen-before security and brand protection with an escape room experience. To learn more, visit HP’s show preview on LinkedIn.

Application Innovation
HP Indigo customers are leading new frontiers in digital packaging. During the last year, the second dedicated shrink-sleeve HP Indigo 8000 was installed in the U.S. for serving the fast-growing craft beverage market. Narrow web converters are successfully entering the flexible packaging market leveraging the newly released Pack Ready Lamination – an easy-to-use, simplified entry point to flexible packaging applications that allows you to produce industry-standard laminates with zero cure time.

Laminate tubes are another example of a market in need of digital advantages. HP Indigo customers around the world are already leveraging the HP Indigo WS6000 series presses to answer the market demand. In the last year, tens of millions of laminate tubes were printed using HP Indigo presses, including a major Korean cosmetic brand that moved production to digital for anti-counterfeiting and consumer relationship purposes.

HP Indigo GEM Enters First Stage of Beta Customer Testing
At Labelexpo 2017, the company announced HP Indigo GEM, the breakthrough one-pass digital embellishments solution. This year, the HP Indigo GEM is in first stage of beta customer testing and the first U.S. beta customer is Innovative Labeling Solutions (ILS).

“The HP Indigo GEM is a dramatic revolution in digital printing industry enabling us to bring a fully digital printing solution, including embellishments, to the marketplace,” said Jay Dollries, CEO, Innovative Labeling Solutions. “The cutting-edge technology delivered by HP Indigo GEM removes limitations allowing for embellishments to vary across labels further helping our business to be dynamic and responsive to deliver a broad range applications and creative capabilities.”

HP is also announcing collaboration with LEONHARD KURZ Stiftung & Co. KG, a leading provider of foils, to ensure compatibility of their products with HP Indigo GEM. Additional compatible foils will be available from K Laser Technology.

HP Indigo 6900 Latest Capabilities
Continuing the innovation, the narrow web flagship labels and packaging press, HP Indigo 6900, offers converters new solutions to enable accelerated business growth by a set of easy-to-use tools driving new applications while improving operational efficiency.

HP Indigo 6900 enables converters to:

• Print high-performance applications: Pack Ready for Labels, extended to HP’s entire labels and packaging portfolio, improves the performance against water, chemical, and temperature exposure based on a new UV curable additive added to off-the-shelf varnishes, cross-linking the label’s construction. With Pack Ready for Labels, converters can print more types of labels and eliminate costly lamination processes.
• Enhance brand protection: As leader in digital print solutions for brand protection, the HP Indigo 6900 supports a wide variety of solutions including inks and software tools. The newly introduced HP Indigo ElectroInk Invisible Yellow and Blue are only visible under UV light, delivering high performance for security applications. Coupled with new software and cloud-based solutions that allow anti-counterfeiting marks, micro text fonts, and protected track and trace solutions, converters can offer unique layered security, static and serialized, for brand protection.
• Open the full metallic gamut: HP Indigo ElectroInk Silver combines metallic effects with digital capabilities in one printing process, saving on metallic substrates and allowing innovation with clear media. The ink has been successfully adopted by over 100 customers and utilized for a variety of end-use markets including health and beauty, beverage, and household.

HP Indigo 20000 Expands Application Range and Features for Labels and Packaging
With over 150 HP Indigo 20000 units in the market, current and new converters will continue to benefit from continuous HP Indigo innovations that improve efficiencies through production. The digital press enables flexible packaging converters to disrupt the conventional flexible market. It helps label converters grow their business by diversifying to additional applications and large labels. New features and solutions debuting at Labelexpo showcase HP’s ability to help converters respond to market demands.

New capabilities allow users to:

• Print anything: With an extended media gamut and enhanced support of extra stretchable substrates and support of paper substrates up to 350 microns, converters can take on any print job. ILP 030 primer is now available for use with the HP Indigo 20000 opening new possibilities in pressure sensitive labels.
• Stand out from the rest: Premium White ElectroInk brings high opacity white printing to flexible packaging, shrink sleeves, IML and others with a thin, dry layer of ink ready for lamination and other post print process right off the press.
• Be sustainable: Concentrated ink reduces oily waste from the press by up to 50 percent compared to previous ink supplied, as well as reduced transportation impact¹.
• Take on One-Step Production: Expanding the range of converting solutions, ABGs ILC760 enables efficient and economical one step applications production of applications including shrink sleeves, flexible packaging, IML, tubes, wrap around and more. The new ILC760 enables the top coating and slit-rewind in line with the press using industry standard water based and UV coatings.

HP Production Pro Enhanced for Full Portfolio Support
The latest Production Pro digital front end (DFE) is now available for HP Indigo 6x00 portfolio and HP Indigo 20000. The new DFE eliminates prepress bottlenecks by delivering scalable RIP performance to process today’s most complex jobs including mass customization, security, and variable brand protection data. Production Pro is up to five times faster compared to the previous versions <