Griffin Press will become the largest digital book printer in Australasia after securing a deal with HP for it to supply three new digital presses. The massive deal will see Griffin – owned by PMP – transition out of offset book printing. Under the terms of the agreement, HP Inc will lease the new digital equipment to Griffin Press for a seven year period at cost of $3.2m per annum. Details on the types of presses include a webfed HP Pagewide T410, a B2 sheetfed HP Indigo 10000 and a HP Indigo 7800. Griffin already has a monochrome HP T350 and HP T260.
New addition: The HP T410
As part of the commission, HP will also supply a Scodix Ultra Pro which will allow Griffin Press to embellish book covers in-house, making it the first book printer in Australasia with this capability. PMP says the commission of the new presses was arranged to ‘meet changing consumer and publisher demand’ and is also part of its strategy to shift from conventional book printing to digital. PMP CEO Peter George comments, “With the rapidly increasing trend for short run printing of books on demand, the ability to create an integrated digital work flow has become critical. “To meet the increased requirement for print on demand, Griffin Press has now gained access to the latest in digital technology printing equipment with its digital printing partner, HP Inc.” George says the $3.2m per anum cost will be partly covered by converting from traditional processes to digital, which he expects will save $1m per annum. He adds, “A benefit from this project will be the enhanced flexibility and improved DIFOT (delivery in full, on time) for our customers and the ability to attract new customers to the new digital capability.” HP is also expected to provide consumables and is responsible for the maintenance of the new digital platform. Currie Group is the HP channel partner. The new HP Indigo digital presses are currently being installed at the Salisbury South facility of PMP Griffin Press and the PWP T410 is scheduled for installation in the second half of 2016. It will be the latest addition in the company’s fleet of HP web presses, having acquired the HP T350 Web Press in 2011 and the HP T260 Web Press in 2014.
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