Toronto-based book printer Webcom has recently announced a major capital investment: an HP T350 Colour Inkjet Web Press. This will complement the HP T300 that the company installed just over a year ago, bringing Webcom's investment total in the last 18 months to $20 million.
The installation doubles Webcom's inkjet capacity to an estimated 2 billion pages annually. This gives it the second largest book production capacity for digital inkjet printing in North America.
The HP T350 inkjet press, expected to be in full production by March, is a four-colour, wide width, 600 feet-per-minute press. It is capable of producing over 8 million customized books annually.
"Not only do these commitments demonstrate our responsiveness to the needs of publishers today, they also exhibit Webcom's flexibility in taking on the challenges of tomorrow," commented Webcom's president and CEO, Mike Collinge.
Part of Webcom's $8 million investment in 2012 includes a significant upgrading of hardware and software. The company expects that these upgrades will drive efficiencies and lower publishers' costs for custom, short run books.
"The combined investments at Webcom and today's urgency for new book publishing business models are a powerful combination designed to help publishers move their business and plan for the future on their own terms," said Collinge.
