Omni-channel communications specialist Communisis has committed to six new HP PageWide web press lines across its Liverpool and Leeds production sites as part of a £14 million investment aiming to maintain levels of service and flexibility and to meet sustainability goals.
The company, which has had HP’s PageWide inkjet web presses since 2011, has three manufacturing sites along the M62 corridor; its Liverpool facility has a new fleet of T240HD presses with Hunkeler inline paper handling and finishing equipment, while Leeds will get a T480HD, offering 1m+ (42in) printing width, together with inline finishing. The latter will sit alongside a T250HD with HP’s Brilliant Ink for direct mail and commercial print work. The T250HD will also enable MICR print for cheque book and similar security print applications, a first for Communisis and a first for HP in Europe.
A further investment is the upgrading of an existing T400 to the T480HD specification, yielding output at up to 240m/min and enabling Communisis to reduce its carbon footprint through the use of more energy-efficient equipment. This is complemented by participation in HP’s Take Back programme which recycles printhead cartridges and other consumable components, while the water-based inks help meet the company’s broader sustainability aims. The T-series web inkjets are complemented by existing HP Indigo liquid toner presses that will be used for short-run high quality marketing campaigns.
Christina McMinn, executive director of manufacturing and logistics for Communisis, commented, ‘Investing in new, more efficient equipment is key to our commitment to sustainability with lower energy consumption and environmentally friendly water-based inks. Through close collaboration between HP project management and Communisis transformation teams, we’ve successfully implemented the first four HD lines into our Liverpool operation without any disruption to our extensive client base. To do this during a pandemic where movement and logistics is a considerable challenge is even more impressive and testament to HP’s commitment and support to Communisis. We now turn our attention in 2022 to our Leeds facility for the second part of our exciting installs – the new T250HD with brilliant ink technology and a new high-speed T480HD. We can’t wait to show our clients the fantastic new digital print capabilities.’
‘We are thrilled to have Communisis as such a strong, long-standing strategic HP PageWide partner,’ said Carles Farre, vice-president and general manager of HP’s PageWide Industrial business. ‘The productivity across our PageWide Portfolio has been instrumental in helping Communisis to meet such tight Service Level Agreements without compromising on the integrity and accuracy that transactional customers require. These HP PageWide presses have integrated processing and finishing, regularly printing over 300 million pages per month, which highlights Communisis’ ability to target a diverse customer base with a variety of high value and cost-effective applications, all with an attentive focus on sustainability.’
Communisis is planning to run a series of ‘back to the floor’ open days to demonstrate its new equipment and capabilities. Dates for these have not yet been published.
