A leading reprographics solutions provider in France has been able to reduce costs and achieve business growth by switching to the HP PageWide XL 8000 printer from HP.

A major supplier to international construction companies and subcontractors, Coptos, with a turnover of 1.7 million Euros, offers their customers printed document solutions with next-day delivery, image quality to match applications, and in various formats and media including recycled or environmentally certified papers.

According to Coptos owner Denis Altuna, competing on service levels with larger companies, while adding capacity demands greater productivity and reduced costs per copy. With a reprographics growth target of 20 per cent per year, they needed the versatility to satisfy product diversification, particularly the growing demand for colour.

Pricing was another challenge with black and white CAD print prices in the reprographics market having fallen by nearly 30 per cent over the last four years, and colour prices by about 40 per cent. However, exploiting growth in colour prints challenged Coptos’ existing setup and workflow.

Two years ago, Coptos was reproducing customer projects in two days with 16 fulltime employees working in two shifts. The company now offers next-day delivery of 2GB projects that increasingly include A0 colour posters. Increased productivity and the versatility to combine black and white and colour production on a single printer became crucial to support reducing costs. But their current printer couldn’t deliver the colour quality required, which meant the documents had to be printed on two machines. Additionally, the fatigued printheads led to a decline in print quality while switching printheads stopped production and cost 300 Euros.

Altuna said that the cross-folding process on their existing printer was also complex and required manual intervention.

In early 2016 Coptos installed the HP PageWide XL 8000 printer and the HP PageWide XL folder, with HP SmartStream software to eliminate these challenges and better service their market.

Altuna says they are able to achieve greater profitability with the HP PageWide XL 8000 printing both black and white and colour in one printer; the HP SmartStream software reducing the time spent in preparing jobs; faster print speeds resulting in less time printing; and the automated folding feature in the HP PageWide XL folder saving additional time.

Denis Altuna explains that the whole reprographics workflow is better integrated, with the HP SmartStream software saving them 50 per cent time in preparing and processing jobs. This means they are able to save a day’s work over a week. The software also enables instantaneous previews, allowing them to spot errors before printing, or change the folding style. The PageWide XL folder supports more folding formats than before, and cross-folding runs at production speeds, saving them 15 per cent in production time.

Coptos has also reduced job preparation time as it no longer has to separate colour documents out from black and white to send them to two different printers and later manually collate them. Using the HP PageWide XL 8000 printer and online HP PageWide XL folder, the job workflow is seamless.

Underlining the impact of the HP workflow, Denis Altuna says they save costs because HP PageWide XL printheads produce incredibly more volume, and the printer expands their product portfolio by supporting a wider range of paper, from roll-up banners, to plasticised papers and polypropylene substrates, or natural tracing paper. Thanks to its faster speed and time-saving workflow, the HP PageWide XL printer competes in price per copy with LED.

Altuna reveals that they can now look to expanding their product portfolio beyond typical CAD jobs that squeeze their margins with their metre-squared pricing model. The firm is equipped to diversify to create higher value products thanks to the HP PageWide XL 8000 printer’s ability to seamlessly deliver both black and white and colour, with the assurance of increased productivity and media versatility.

Highlighting Coptos’ new business perspective with their improved reprographics workflow, Altuna said the HP PageWide XL printer has been so successful with construction companies and subcontractors for their bids that it generates a significant proportion of their total revenue.

Coptos’ new HP PageWide XL printer has already absorbed 45 per cent of their black and white production while also printing colour posters within jobs. The higher productivity allows them to maximise their profit on colour printing – a higher margin product with a steady growth in demand.

Image: Using the HP PageWide XL 8000 printer and online HP PageWide XL folder, the job workflow is seamless