HP has announced the HP PageWide C500 Press, with a production capacity of up to 25 million square metres of boards per year.
Eric Wiesner, general manager for the HP PageWide Industrial Division at HP Inc, says, “This post-print corrugated solution from HP is yet another step toward digital conversion of traditional printing, offering savings in waste and setup time and improved supply chain efficiencies, in addition to high-quality colour graphics, easy customisation, and versioning capabilities.
“The HP PageWide C500 will help converters to differentiate with capabilities that only single-pass thermal inkjet and aqueous inks can deliver.”
A direct-to-board digital corrugated solution, the HP PageWide C500 also prints on 1.3m wide boards using a corrugated media handling solution with a virtual belt. It will begin customer beta testing at the end of this year, with commercial availability planned for 2018.
Wiesner says, “The single-pass, digital post-print HP PageWide C500 solution is designed for any-sized corrugated facility for printing applications from shippers to high-quality graphics boxes, on coated and uncoated papers, without need for lamination, all in offset-replaceable quality.”
HP PageWide C500 will also offer a fully integrated stack-to-stack workflow including an in-line overprint varnish solution. HP says software integration to the HP PrintOS ecosystem and industry MIS should enable easier migration to digital with existing MIS infrastructure and prepress workflow.
HP says that it expects corrugated packaging, a more than $US226bn ($327bn) industry this year, to hit $US269 billion in 2021. HP sees its addressable market at around $US3.4 billion.
HP eyes corrugated market
