Duplo’s DC-646i Production Colour Finisher will connect through its e-Tandem software, normally used for billing and service support, in a near-line integration to the HP Indigo 7900 and 10000 digital presses in Hall 17, under the Direct-to-Finish banner. It is also the first time that e-Tandem has been linked in this way.
The Duplo device, which performs a range of functions including cutting, creasing and perforating in a single pass, receives finishing instructions from the printers using JDF, directly from the job ticket produced in HP’s SmartStream Production Pro Server.
The two manufacturers said that quality will be increased, errors reduced, waste cut and turnaround times reduced.
Head of commercial Alex North said: “These enhanced solutions for connectivity using JDF aren’t new for printing, but with PrintOS they are a first for finishing.
“In the past, print has had a difficult time and thought of as just a commodity. However, this use of JDF is another example of how Duplo can provide further automation and precision so that people can make more intelligent solutions and increased profit.
“It’s certainly not a tool to make people’s jobs redundant, more one to enable printers to re-assign staff and concentrate their skills in other profitable areas of their business.
“At the moment it’s just for the Duplo DC-646i and will have many benefits for the printer. No longer will they have to have an expensive guillotine operator manually cutting and turning the same sheet of paper. The job can now be done smarter, better and faster through using JDF.”
Users will also be able to feed information about the status of work in progress and when a job is complete to an MIS, providing an opportunity to extend automation into dispatch and billing functions to further reduce human input.
Gershon Alon, manager, workflow solutions and partner program at HP Indigo said: “We are proud with our ongoing collaboration with Duplo jointly delivering innovative automated finishing workflow for our mutual customers.
“HP Indigo customers who use Direct-to-Finish in combination with the Duplo DC-646i will benefit from the cost saving associated with reduced set-up time, no waste and no errors.
"We are delighted with Duplo being our first finishing partner that joined forces with HP Indigo connecting e-Tandem with our PrintOS. We are looking forward toward our mutual demonstrations in HP Hall 17 and Duplo stand in Hall 5."
HP set the aim of "reinventing print production" with PrintOS, a cloud-based production environment revealed in March, and said it would link to non-HP devices.
Direct-to-Finish will be available for the DC-646i shortly following Drupa and final customer field trials. Duplo said further testing and customer consultation was needed.
North said Duplo intended to roll out the connectivity to other Duplo systems, such as the 746.
“We have developed a fabulous relationship with the HP Indigo staff and, at the moment, the link-up is for the 7900 and 10000 owners,” he added.
“However, we have also been talking to various printer manufacturers and software vendors about working with JDF.”
