DSCOOP provides digital smarts to HP Indigo users.

The 2008 DSCOOP Conference, a gathering of users of HP Indigo digital printing presses, took place from February 19-21 at the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina. Around 1,200 people attended, although the label and packaging side of the business represented around 10 percent of that number. The "Solutions Showcase" featured 56 exhibitors and was sold out several weeks before the show. It was certainly an action packed couple of days with around 70 educational sessions available and networking events every evening.

Like all DSCOOP events, the focus was on the commercial sheetfed side of the business, but HP went out of its way to create a Label and Packaging Track with a range of excellent topics. Also, in the Solutions Showcase HP demonstrated the WS4500 digital press and AB Graphic had its new Omega Digicon 2 converting machine.

The event was kicked off by Mike Eruzione, captain of the victorious 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team. He talked about the importance of hard work, respect and sacrifice--qualities that are just as important for success in business as they are in sport. He also believes in the importance of surrounding yourself with passionate people, people who believe in what you are trying to accomplish.

One of the most popular educational sessions was the WS4500 Top Tricks and Tips. It was standing room only in this "off the record" session of productivity tips for press operators. Some of the tips that we are allowed to publish are: Always keep the humidity of the press room at 50 to 70 percent; you will improve your color consistency if you do two lookup table generations instead of one; stick an absorbent mat onto the bottom of the ITM hood--this helps catch imaging oil drips. DSCOOP members will be able to access all the tips on the DSCOOP web site at www.dscoop.org.

Tim Staples from AB Graphic, one of the platinum sponsors of the show, demonstrated the new Digicon 2 series of finishing presses. With a new modular design, this press does far more than just diecut. The show unit also had a hot foil unit and a flexo station with a UV coater, both capable of running in semi-rotary mode. Several changes have been made in this new series that improve operator productivity, such as the fact that no tools whatsoever are needed to remove the anilox roll in the flexo station.

Aaron Mallory from HP presented an excellent session on color management. He said all HP Indigo series 2 presses (including the WS4XXX series) provide the opportunity for excellent color repeatability as long as you follow a set of standards and enforce those standards. For example, you should always do a machine lookup table generation after you perform a color adjust. If you maintain the machine well and have a consistent operating environment you will get excellent color consistency.

Another well attended session was from HP's Ray Dickinson, who discussed new tools for producing variable data. HP has developed new technology in response to the California Board of Pharmacy requirement that all drugs have a unique identifier that can be tracked at the item level. A way to do this is with what is called a "3D" bar code. It is not truly three dimensional; it is basically a 2D bar code with color. Each small 1" square can have as many as 256 colors that can "store" up to 96 characters of information. For track and trace and anti-counterfeiting, this 3D bar code can be scanned by a regular desktop scanner to verify authenticity.

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The senior management of HP presented a morning session focused on what HP calls Print 2.0, the future of print. It is about moving print from the analog world to the digital world. Right now HP estimates that only 9 percent of the estimated 49 trillion pages printed in 2007 were printed digitally, and in the label world it is only around 1 percent of labels. Print 2.0 is about providing the tools to increase the number of digitally printed pages and labels.

There were several other great sessions. Terie Syme of Prestige Label and Jason Pearson of GreenBlue presented an informative session on sustainable practices for labels and packaging. There were also educational sessions on scheduling for digital print, private labeling, coating of substrates, implementing a sales and marketing plan, and many more.

Peter Renton is the founder of Lightning Labels, an all-digital label printer in Denver, CO, USA. He is also the author of The Blogsmith column in every issue of L & NW.