The press was launched earlier this month at Interpack 2014 and marks, along with other developments, a significant move into packaging on HP’s part.

Image Factory intends to use the machine to ramp up production of the corrugated and solid POS and display graphics it currently prints on its HP Scitex 10000. 

“We have made a huge transformation over the last three years to become an almost completely digital house. The FB10000 has led us into some new market areas with higher volumes particularly on corrugated. The 15000 will help us process those volumes more efficiently,” said Terry Smith, owner and managing director at Image Factory.

“People still think digital’s for small volumes but it is now an industrial process.” 

Smith added that diversifying into packaging was a future possibility but that wide format POS was for now Image Factory’s main focus. “Clearly the technology is perfect for packaging but we will follow the opportunities as they come,” he said.

Image Factory currently also has two HP Scitex FB7600s and is a completely HP house.

“It’s about a partnership and I‘m very happy to be working with HP,” added Smith. “Yes we’ve looked at other things but the FB10000 has been so brilliant, why look elsewhere?”

The HP Scitex 15000 is based on the same platform as the HP Scitex FB10000, launched at Fespa 2013, and features the same inks, print modes and maximum sheet size, but with more automated media handling geared towards corrugated converters.

Whereas the FB10000 featured a 3/4 automated media loader, which still required the operator to manual load each sheet (with the sheet then automatically aligned, printed and unloaded), the 15000 features fully-automatic media loading from a media stack.

Owners of the FB10000 will be able to upgrade to the HP Scitex 15000 if desired.