Ren-Flex installs Africa’s first HP Indigo 200K

Ren-Flex has installed and commissioned the first HP Indigo 200K digital press anywhere in Africa, working with its technology partner Kemtek.

The installation continues a pattern. Ren-Flex was the first converter in South Africa to install each previous generation of HP Indigo flexible printing press, and CEO Dwayne du Sart says the 200K has already produced a measurable improvement in efficiency and output.

Kemtek’s factory-trained technicians handled the installation, and the press is now integrated into Ren-Flex’s printshop and workflows.

Ren-Flex was looking to expand its capacity for sustainable flexible packaging and to win clients on consistent quality, brand colour matching and cost, alongside the agility that digital printing allows. The 200K, the company says, has given it that and broadened what it can offer customers.

Flexible packaging remains a growth area, particularly in food. Customers are also more demanding than they were, their expectations shaped by what earlier generations of digital presses delivered.

The 200K marks a shift in how Ren-Flex thinks about the technology. Digital printing was once treated as the answer for short runs and little else. It is now part of every conversation when print managers and customers are working out the most cost-effective way to produce a job.

HP Indigo says its current presses reach quality levels once achievable only with gravure. Successive generations have added productivity and cut downtime between jobs through faster set-ups.

With sustainability increasingly a differentiator between print service providers, Ren-Flex says this is where the 200K has impressed most. Shorter lead times and faster turnaround mean less waste per job, and the press handles flexible packaging materials engineered to be more easily recycled.

The purchase has run in parallel with Ren-Flex’s investment in solar power, both as a hedge against unreliable grid supply and to reduce the operation’s environmental footprint.

The 200K is rated at print speeds of up to 56m/minute. Further efficiencies come from colour automation and workflow integration, helped by synchronisation with HP’s PrintOS software.

Although it amounts to a production line in a single unit, the 200K has a comparatively small footprint, which limited disruption during installation. Digital remains most economical on shorter runs, but Ren-Flex says the range of jobs for which it now reaches first for the 200K has widened considerably, and that digital printing of flexible packaging is economical over longer runs than before.

Ren-Flex says the combination of quality, consistency, speed and cost is already bringing in business from new and existing clients. For a South African company, that carries a further benefit: more printing work stays onshore rather than going offshore.

What started as a search for efficiency and automation has ended with Ren-Flex rethinking its printshop.