Trade customers, print buyers and vendors poured into the company’s St Peters factory to see the new HP Scitex FB7500, the second to be installed in the Asia Pacific region.

Next managing director Tom Tjanaria (pictured, far left) said he was proud to be the second Australian company to invest in the 500sqm-per-hour FB7500, adding: “With a good tennis player, skill is very important, but so is the racquet.”

Martin Carballo, director of Scitex Graphic Solutions Business for HP Asia Pacific said the vendor is “really happy” with the Next installation

“We believe there is a big opportunity in analogue-to-digital,” he added.

Carballo (pictured, second from left) said Next would use the machine to seek out new revenue streams. “Five years ago, billboards were the mainstream market for this sector. With Next, you can see that’s all changed.”

Image Smart creative director George Karatonis, a customer of Next, told ProPrint the FB7500 produced “fantastic” work.

Karatonis said “the colours are great”, the clarity was top-notch, and the turnaround times were quick.

“Next has always been good with speed-to-market and this machine helps,” he added.

Next first revealed the purchase in March. General manager Romeo Sanuri (pictured, second from right) said: “It will be used mainly for point-of-sale and point-of-display applications. The aim is to convert a lot of the screen printing jobs to digital.”

The FB7500 is Next’s fourth UV flatbed printer, with the company also running an EFI Vutek PressVU320, an EFI Vutek QS2000, and a Durst Rho 351R.

The first FB7500 in Asia Pacific was installed at Magnify Media in Melbourne.

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