Blue Star Print Unleashes the Full Potential of its Web Press Solution

Australia’s Blue Star Group is one of the country’s leading print communication businesses, offering a wide range of solutions—from digital print to display; from web publications to sophisticated marketing campaigns. At its spacious location in Western Sydney the company excels in high volume commercial print, producing books, newspapers, direct mail, transaction promotional materials and government communication documents.

Blue Star Print’s early investment in inkjet web press technology was not fulfilling its potential due to differing levels of its operators’ understanding of the machine’s capabilities. In late 2011 it installed the HP PageWide Web Press T300, a highly productive and versatile full color digital press able to handle up to seven kilometers (4.3 miles) of paper within a reel and printing at up to 122 meters (400 feet) per minute.

However the machine had been running short of its full potential, leaving some customers querying the quality of the finished print output. In 2014 Blue Star appointed Mark Stevens as head of digital and one of his key tasks was to analyze and diagnose these issues.

“There had been no formal induction for our operators when the company adopted digital print technology. The capabilities of the machine’s color management, workflow and interaction of inks, paper and dryer was not fully understood. The finished product was inconsistent and did not always meet the expectations of some of our customers,” said Stevens. “The PageWide Web Press HP T300 is a finely tuned and sophisticated press. Since there had been merely a preliminary introduction to our entire operating staff at installation, it resulted in various operators having different levels of operating knowledge of the press and there was no supremo overseeing the total process. Errors made and not fully understood meant the same issues kept recurring.”

To correct the situation, the company deployed an HP Ramp-up Production Optimization service resulting in a new level of high quality, consistent color print output, motivating its own staff, winning back disaffected customers and attracting new business.

Delivering the Perfect End Result

Getting the best print result out of these variables is achieved by educating the operators.

“The HP PageWide Web Press T300 has a number of elements that must work together to deliver the perfect end result,” explained Stevens. “The first is color profile selection which determines what color profile to use for every type of print job. Next the start-up calibration ink density setting tells the T300 press what it can anticipate for the correct interaction of paper, ink and dryer in that particular print job. Dryer settings are important to ensure the paper is correctly dried and finally the tension guide chart helps prevent paper creasing inside the dryer.

Stevens and his team were immediately impressed with the audit conducted by the HP Ramp-up Production Specialist flown in from Singapore. “It created a relevant platform of learning about what affects the quality of the print and the theory of operation of each press component. The audit conducted by the HP Ramp-up specialist was very collaborative and thorough, assessing existing process flow and practices, identifying the areas where the up skilling should focus. It created a relevant platform of learning that was a good balance of theory and practical use cases.”

Based on the classroom learning the Blue Star Print operators became aware of all the factors to consider when changing the press settings. Existing processes and practices were categorized as good or needing improvement and an agreed ‘issues list’ was produced.

‘Masters of the Machine’

“The HP Ramp-up training was well thought out,” noted Stevens, “The sessions were stage managed over 10 days to allow us to keep to our planned production levels. It prompted a flow of ideas from the operators whose previous main focus had been on how to operate and perform press maintenance. Now they were seeing the potential of the HP PageWide Web Press T300 through new eyes. Our team could clearly see the ‘before and after’ improvement of our digital print output.”

An early decision taken by Stevens was to concentrate on a narrower range of stock media focusing on color management. “Our operators now automatically know what color profile to use for every type of print job. This prevented prints from being over saturated, delivering significant savings in the amount of ink used.”

Stevens added: “The finished print looks amazing compared to the past. You can imagine the positive and satisfying impact felt by our operators. They are ‘masters of the machine’ and it responds by delivering high quality print output of great color vibrancy. We have motivated customers who left us to return and prospective customers are asking us to run test prints at the rate of three or four every two weeks. Their reaction confirms the HP Ramp-up service has helped our operators to fully unleash the best print quality capability of the HP PageWide Web Press T300.”

“In terms of quality and productivity our operators are scoring high bench marks. We are meeting the International Color Consortium (ICC) profiles for best performance on various stocks and we are doing that at a speed of 2,447 A4 pages per minute. Our streamlined shift structure now has the capability of printing 75 million A4 pages per month,” said Stevens.

Spotlight

Industry sector: General Commercial Printing and Direct Mail
Business name: Blue Star Print
Headquarters: Sydney, Australia
HP solution: HP PageWide Web Press T300
Website: bluestargroup.com.au