Pixartprinting announces the purchase of two Komori 8-colour 70x100cm machines, 4 HP Indigo 7500 presses and 2 HP Latex presses. These are the systems that will further increase the production capacity of pixartprinting, thanks to agreements entered into with Komori and HP almost simultaneously. Perhaps it isn’t such a casual coincidence but it confirms the company’s position with respect to the age-old dilemma of offset printing versus digital printing. With this important announcement, pixartprinting continues to amaze us with the strategies chosen, its exponential growth, the result of its internationalisation policy and conspicuous investments in new technologies, which for this first part of the year amount to roughly Euro 8 million. Implementation of new printing systems for printing large and small size jobs has become necessary, due to the increase in orders which determined a 48% growth in sale in the last financial year, with respect to the previous year.
Matteo Rigamonti, CEO of pixartprinting comments: “As we’ve already emphasised before, our customers don’t care which technology is used to fulfil individual orders. Customer satisfaction is based on other factors: the quality of the result, respect for delivery time and competitive prices, of course. To satisfy at best the expectations of our customers, we focus on advanced technology, constantly introducing the most innovative and efficient systems available on the market in our production department.” He adds: “Considering that by now the quality of offset and digital prints are pretty much the same, there’s no longer the problem of production deformity. Thanks to our Uragano software and the performances of the new Komori machines, which allow for having the right and stable amount of inking with only 20 sheets of make-ready, we’ve managed to lower the break-even point as we had hoped. In our production department digital printing is suited for foliation jobs of up to 200/250 colour prints on A3 sheets on plain white paper or 100/125 colour prints on A3 sheets on white paper and at times offset printing is right for larger quantities. These results make us even more competitive, because it certainly depends on technologies, but above all on our Uragano software that optimises workflow. It’s a plus that only we have, since the software has been entirely tailor made by our staff of engineers. Due to all these reasons we are really convinced that at our company the two technologies are perfect only if considered complementary, each for its specific nature.”
Only Uragano has the task of deciding whether orders will be printed with the digital system or with offset printing. It manages daily to bring together over a thousand individual processes on hundreds of make-readies perfectly synchronised with delivery time, print runs, paper type and grams per square meter. “It’s a job that is practically impossible for a human being,” Rigamonti comments. “The result of this automated process management enables us to fully exploit the machines’ capacity, practically eliminating wastes and inefficiencies.”
Lowering the break-even point and the great success of the dedicated promotional campaign conducted in recent months has led pixartprinting to make another important investment in offset printing. Between September and November the two Komori 4-colour and 10-colour 50 x 70cm systems will be replaced by two new Komori 8-colour 70 x 100cm super offset systems, endowed with transfer device, which will allow for quadrupling the company’s production capacity. Pasquale Razza, Sales Manager at Komori Italia, comments: “It’s the first installation in Italy with 8-colour systems complete with simultaneous automatic plate change and a new spectrophotometric quality control unit with bar reading that can be positioned at any point on the sheet, which adjusts inkers and the register at the same time with just one scan. These functions further speed up the time it takes for make-readies, and improve print quality at the same time. This configuration has still not been officially presented. Indeed, our R&D department completed the project at the request of pixartprinting ahead of schedule to satisfy their specific requirements.”
The 4 new HP Indigo 7500 presses to be installed between April and June will contribute to strengthening the capacity of the small size digital printing department, and will support the 6 HP Indigo 7000 presses already installed. This choice stems from the improved features of this system which has brilliantly passed the beta tests HP conducted at eight customers, including Precision Printing, a partner in the UK of pixartprinting. Besides hardware solutions, pixartprinting has invested in a powerful hardware solution developed by HP: the digital front-end Ultra Print Server customised for the requirements of the Venice-based company that will manage the whole Indigo department composed of 10 presses. It’s a powerful server with centralised workflow control, capable of routing all jobs, creating job tickets, analysing each machine’s specifications, sending the job order to the machine available at that particular moment, and playing a big role in optimising production. “With this choice pixartprinting confirms that digital printing and conventional printing are complementary and not antagonists,” explains Gabriella Moretti, Marketing Manager of HP Indigo Digital Printing. “We are proud that pixartprinting has confirmed its confidence in our company, surely fruit of a long-standing profitable collaboration. Besides the installation of new HP Indigo presses and dedicated operating software, this collaboration and confidence have grown with the purchase of two more HP Latex presses dedicated to wide format prints, which will be added to the 5 already installed.
