In December last year Melbourne digital print company On Demand received PSO certification to the ISO 12647-2 printing standard. Shane Lucas, Director HP Graphic Arts South Pacific says On Demand’s PSO certification is a landmark achievement for digital printing in general and for HP Indigo specifically.

On Demand’s achievement demonstrates that digital printing can achieve the same colour quality as analogue printing. In the past colour matching was the perceived division between digital and analogue printing and now that line is clearly blurred. The myth that digital print cannot meet the colour standards of analogue is clearly dispelled by On Demand’s certification.

For a long time we have held the belief that the Indigo is the only true digital press as it does not rely on a toner and fused Xerographic process. To my knowledge we are the only manufacturer to produce a true digital press – not a printer, but a press. And now with this achievement, Indigo delivers a proof point and level of confidence to those who want to match the highest colour quality standards from the analogue world.”

Bruce Peddlesden, Managing Director, On Demand says he is enormously proud of his company’s achievement and the commitment of his production team to meet the stringent standards required to achieve PSO certification to the ISO 12647-2 printing standard.

The process took around three months and required the full commitment of everyone in production and in management to make the changes necessary to ensure colour quality. We worked closely with Jason Hall of CMYKit to refine our processes to achieve certification."

Jason Hall has extensive experience in analogue and digital printing. He is the first UGRA (Centre of Competence for Media and Printing Technology) PSO certified consultant in Australia and guided On Demand through the rigours of achieving certification. Hall says to fulfill the goals of ISO 12647 and PSO, other standards like ISO 15930 (PDF-X), ISO 12647-7 (Proofing), ISO 3664 (Illumination for visual colour assessment) and parts of ISO 9000 need to be fulfilled.

We believe this is the first time on a worldwide basis that UGRA has certified a digital printing press with full quality control system to the ISO 12647-2 analogue offset standard,” says Hall. “On Demand has proven with its PSO certification that digital printing technology can be PSO certified to any of these associated ISO 12647 standards.”

On Demand's certification was not awarded easily. After the extensive preparation work done by On Demand with the help of CMYKit and the Currie Group (HP Indigo's Australian distributors), On Demand had to be independently audited by UGRA before the certification was awarded.

The significance of this certification is really highlighted by the fact that the head of UGRA from Switzerland, Erwin Widmer, came over to Australia to personally supervise the audit at On Demand with its regional audit provider GASAA" says Phillip Rennell from the Currie Group.

In conclusion Peddlesden says,

We can now give a client a proof knowing that we have received the file correctly, worked with the file correctly and proofed it on a press we know is 100 percent colour correct. This means the client can look at that proof and know the actual job will be identical to that proof. The significance of this to our clients cannot be understated. Being able to guarantee the colour correctness all the way through the process means no more errors, reprints or wasted production time. In a competitive market having this certification is critical to our future success.”