Tech giant Hewlett-Packard opened a multi-million-dollar facility in Tuas yesterday that will boost its commercial printing service.
The plant expands HP's Indigo ink manufacturing capability and is expected to quadruple production when it comes online next year. HP has a similar facility in Israel.
The new two-storey plant also has a Centre of Excellence where HP and its customers and suppliers can exchange ideas and co-develop new digital printing solutions.
This is the firm's third Centre of Excellence focused on commercial printing. The others are in Atlanta in the United States and Barcelona, Spain.
HP did not disclose its investment in the new facility here but it is believed to be upwards of US$30 million (S$37.5 million).
Mr Nick Lazaridis, its senior vice-president for printing and personal systems in Asia-Pacific and Japan, said about 100 staff will be hired for the Indigo ink expansion over the next five years.
"Digital printing is just starting to grow. Over the last 10 to 15 years, commercial printers have invested in analogue printers. They want to depreciate their investments before they switch to digital presses," he told The Straits Times at the opening yesterday. "This is only starting to happen and we're beginning to see a ramp-up in our business."
HP has been operating in Singapore for 44 years. Its past investments include manufacturing plants for servers and printer components, including ink supplies, and research and development activities for cloud computing.
Digital printing replaces the films and plates used in analogue printing with software. This helps commercial printers to offer short print runs, last-minute changes and speed.
Digital printers can be used to print on corrugated cardboard, plastic, stickers, cloth and, of course, paper, on items as diverse as dresses to advertising billboards or special mesh used on scaffolds.
HP said this graphics solutions business is a US$52.5 billion market. Research firm IDC said HP is No. 1 in this field, where prints can be as small as postage stamps or as large as building wraps.
It is estimated that 51.2 trillion pages were printed last year, but HP data shows that only a fraction of that was done digitally, said HP's vice-president for Indigo worldwide, Mr Alon Bar-Shany, adding: "We're very excited with the potential for growth."
Mr Lazaridis added that customisation of labels, marketing collaterals, packaging and other materials is driving digital printing.
"For example, Coca-Cola ran a campaign in Europe over three months where it printed 800 million personalised bottle labels. These carried names. I get excited when I see Nick on the bottle. There are millions of other Nicks, but it's still my name. It's a new way of connecting with consumers."
Mr Richard Tan, managing director of Prestige Label, a commercial printer here, said digital printing allowed him to make last-minute changes quickly.
"We've shown that in an eight-hour shift, we can print 3,000 labels in 32 different sizes in different colours and using different types of ink. If we used analogue printers, it would have taken us a week," noted Mr Tan, who has been running Prestige for 25 years.
The HP facility was opened by Ms Thien Kwee Eng, assistant managing director of the Economic Development Board.
Ms Thien said that investments by HP and microprocessor company MediaTek show that the electronics industry in Singapore remains globally competitive. The sector attracted $16 billion in fixed asset investments over the last three years.
This article was first published on September 04, 2014.
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