Digital printing is providing a boon to many print companies, including the Wellcom Group, which is using its HP Indigo to grow its digital business
THE Wellcom Group started life as a pre-media solutions house in a purpose-built facility in Port Melbourne in 2000. Today this site is head office for the Group which has expanded rapidly, and is now operating
in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, London and Auckland.
Wellcom’s capabilities include a range of services from pre-media, design, photography, digital and traditional print (offset and web) to finishing and its latest service, low-end TV production giving new meaning to the one-stop-shop maxim. The Group’s operations also produce large format point of sale materials on its suite of HP Designjet large format printers which comprise two HP Designjet 5000 and four HP Designjet 4500 printers.
In 2006 the Group reassessed its digital print offering, as general manager Mark Parker explains. “We knew we could up-sell and cross-sell to our existing design and pre-media customers if we had the right digital print solution. We have a number of design hubs around the country where our creative people work in-house at the client’s premises.”
But the Group’s existing digital printer was outdated impeding the company’s ability to capitalise on the obvious growth potential of this market.
Determined to ramp up the Group’s digital print capabilities Parker and his team worked closely with HP Indigo partner the Currie Group to find the right solution for its business model.
As a result Wellcom installed its first HP Indigo 5000 digital press in 2006. The Group was so impressed with the offset look and feel of the printed product and the versatility of the press that it now operates three, across its Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane operations.
Peter Gray, Wellcom’s project manager, worked intensively with the Currie Group to explore the press' potential. He says, “Our previous experience in digital print had left us somewhat sceptical about the quality that was achievable. The Indigo came through with flying colours. We were blown away with the repeatability of jobs, the versatility in regards to substrates and the consistency and quality of the colour.
“An average run for us is around 1000 sheets,” says Gray. “However the cost efficiencies we achieve with the HP Indigo means that we can profitably produce very small runs, like five or ten copies of an annual report, all the way through to runs of 2000.”
And according to Wellcom the colour quality is exemplary. “We produced a 350 page corporate ID brand book for ANZ. With this job it was imperative that the ANZ corporate blue was perfect all the way through. In my experience that is very hard to achieve on an offset press, but it was not an issue on the HP Indigo.”
Mark Parker’s final word on the HP Indigo presses: “The HP Indigo has met our high standards and delivered an extra $4million in revenue to the national business to date. Installing the HP
Indigo presses has been a sound business investment.”
