HP announces commercial availability of WS6000

HP has announced commercial availability of its WS6000 digital label press that was launched last year at drupa.

The HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press prints at 30 meters per minute (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.

End-user perspective
‘The HP Indigo WS6000 is a real “game changing” technology. With frequent artwork changes and high “Stock Keeping Unit” (SKU) complexity, this digital technology can dramatically reduce the speed to market for labels and other printed packaging materials,’ said Michael Ferrari, associate director, corporate research and development, The Procter & Gamble Company. ‘As more label and packaging converting work goes digital, companies like P&G can enhance the consumer experience by efficiently bringing a greater variety of designs to store shelves, ensuring that more consumers are aware of a given product’s benefits and qualities.’

Converter feedback
The first North American firm to install the press, Innovative Labeling Solutions (ILS) of Hamilton, Ohio, is substantially growing its business by offering higher-volume, high-quality labels, flexible packaging and folding cartons that enable all levels of consumer product manufacturers to affordably and effectively market their brands.

‘Because it is more cost-effective than flexo on such a wide range of work, the number of companies that can take advantage of digital has gone up four- or fivefold with the WS6000,’ said Jay Dollries, president and chief executive officer, Innovative Labeling Solutions. ‘The press not only gives all brand owners the ability to increase sell-through rates with different, compelling graphics for each flavor or variety of a product, it enables mid-tier firms to compete more effectively on the shelf with photographic-quality labels they might otherwise find too expensive to print using flexography.’

The Stratus Packaging Group, one of Europe’s leading producers of labels and flexible packaging materials, is also among the first companies to install the HP Indigo WS6000. The press has been installed at Stratus’s digital production center in Martin de Limoges, France, and is being used to offer advanced services, such as versioning and fast-turnaround production.

‘The volume of digital print runs has been increasing constantly for three years,’ said Isidore Leiser, president, Stratus Packaging Group. ‘The new production capacities of the HP Indigo WS6000, combined with the traditional high quality of the HP Indigo presses that we already have, immediately appealed to us and allow us to meet our customers’ needs even better.’

Gurnee, Illinois-based Nosco, a provider of secure pharmaceutical labels and packaging, is producing serialized drug labels, folding cartons and blister packs on its new HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press. This offers the advantages of digital to a broader set of customers that only used flexography before because of volume demands.

‘The WS6000 is a highly productive digital printing device for packaging, significantly changing the game by allowing digital to move from short- to medium-run quantities,’ said R. Craig Curran, director of strategic initiatives, Nosco. ‘We are able to gain new business and significantly grow our digital printing operation.’

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