HP has established a digital print networking group for the corrugated packaging and display sector. Named Digital Pack, this is said to be focussed on brands but is of course really about persuading those brands to specify HP equipment.
For now, Digital Pack is made up of corrugated converters in North America and Western Europe that use HP’s PageWide corrugated presses, though HP says that it will expand into other regions in the future. It does not appear to include those converters that are using HP Scitex 15000 and 17000 flatbeds.
Jim Beard, COO of Vanguard Packaging, a Digital Pack founding member company, commented: “Digital Pack’s objective is to make digital print easier and better for brands.” The group mainly seems to be trying to achieve this by creating educational programs, white papers and videos to inform and inspire brands on value opportunities with digital print. There’s a website, digitalpack.com, which contains case studies of successful digital-print corrugated campaigns and projects.
The website can also help brands connect directly to converters, and there seems to be a suggestion that those converters can work together if they need to outsource jobs to meet a particular demand.
The group also says that it will work to simplify the art file creation process, prepress workflow, and print manufacturing processes though this really sounds like something that HP’s workflow developers should be working on.
Indeed, it’s not really clear if this is a user group along the lines of DScoop or if it’s actually run by HP as part of its marketing efforts. HP itself was unable to answer any basic questions as to how this initiative might work or how many converters are active members of it.
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