Retail In-plant Replaces iGen3s with Indigos

Scott Cornish had a color conundrum on his hands when trying to consistently produce marketing collateral pieces and in-store signage for Chico's, FAS, Inc., a sophisticated women's clothing and intimate apparel retailer. Cornish, manager of the company's production center/print services in Fort Myers, Fla., concluded it was time to make an equipment change, and in December replaced a pair of Xerox iGen3s with two HP Indigo 7000 digital presses, along with an HP Indigo ink mixing station.

"We were trying to do some more marketing work for the company and with the iGens we weren't able to hit the spot colors that we needed," Cornish contends.
Specifically, the shop needed to print a brown and a teal green, but the in-plant's equipment was not matching the colors correctly. What was supposed to be a teal green was printing as a teal blue, Cornish recalls. The manager knew the color had to be just right for the company's marketing campaigns to be successful.

"The iGen just could not hit both of those colors, let alone be consistent across the page for a full bleed," Cornish notes. "We were doing marketing collateral to go along with mailers and signage, and the iGen just would not produce the signs in those colors or as a smooth color across the sheet."

Chico's, FAS, Inc. operates approximately 1,080 locations under the Chico's, White House/Black Market, and Soma Intimates brand names. Its in-plant has five full-time employees and one part-time staffer, and produces jobs such as collateral materials, posters, rack-top signage, wall signage, employee communications and training materials.

The in-plant can now produce those jobs faster and with higher quality, Cornish says. Chico's marketing team electronically routes jobs to the shop via the HP SmartStream Pro Print Server.

"There are still colors that we can't quite hit with the Indigos, but we can mix those," he points out. "We did a lot of research with various companies and the Indigo was the best solution for our shop."

Cornish reports that the all-digital shop also recently upgraded its bindery equipment, adding a host of new Duplo equipment, including: a DB-280 perfect binder, a System 5000 Dynamic Booklet Maker, a DC-645 slitter/cutter/creaser, and a hydraulic DocuCutter 660. Also new are a Challenge three-hole drill, a Challenge cornering machine, a D&K Expression 42" laminator, an Excalibur board trimmer 1000XE and a Rhino-Tuff die punch HD7700 Ultima. These installations were a welcome addition to a department that produces between 2 million and 4 million impressions each month.