TOTAL large format HP printers to oceans' depth

27 April 2009, 9:06pm

TOTAL brings large format HP printers to the depth of the oceans.

The challenge: Increase efficiency and technical data accuracy in the production of large-format colour prints. Manage a complex network environment Offer a productive printing solution.

The solution: HP Designjet Z6100 Printer to improve the image quality and durability. HP Designjet 4000 Printer to ensure reliable line accuracy and productivity. HP Web Jetadmin software to supervise the printer network. HP Universal Inkjet Bond Paper, HP Premium Instant-dry Gloss Photo Paper, HP Universal Adhesive Vinyl for high quality outdoor prints

Business benefits:

o Accurate interpretation of geological data that enables TOTAL to determine areas with new oil fields

o Increased efficiency thanks to improved communication with partners

o A reliable network that optimises printing productivity and simplifies cross-platform integration and workflow

Oil and gas industry giant TOTAL Energy and Process FRANCE uses a variety of printers and software for its industrial activities to interpret geological data and determine areas where it may find new oil fields.

Established in the 1920s, TOTAL SA is a multinational energy company committed to leveraging innovation and initiatives to provide a sustainable response to the world’s growing energy demands. TOTAL SA operates in more than 130 countries and has 96,400 employees.

TOTAL E&P FRANCE chose HP Designjet Printers in 1993 when pen-plotters were still the latest technology in large format printing. Since then, HP Designjet Printers have been the preferred choice based on reliability, range of large format printers available, TOTAL E&P FRANCE’s familiarity with HP products and brand loyalty to a single supplier that satisfies all its printing needs. TOTAL E&P FRANCE now owns 90 HP Designjet Printers and recently bought four HP Designjet Z6100 Printer series, twenty HP Designjet 4000 and HP Designjet 4500 Printer series to replace its older range of HP Designjet printers.

Geologists and geophysicists are the main HP Designjet Printer users in their Computer-Aided Design (CAD) or Geographic Information System (GIS) activities. This is because they need to print fluid circulation plans, such as piping, platform construction plans or geologic, seismic, and satellite maps for interpretation. TOTAL E&P FRANCE also uses HP Designjet Printers for its printing department, which manages all the printing and scan-to-print requests.

“We gain a great advantage when working with HP Designjet Printers on our oil projects,“ says Jean Louis Ducousso, printing department manager for TOTAL E&P FRANCE. “For those projects we work with partners and often gather people around a table to interpret the results of a seismic analysis or an operation that has been carried out in the field. Before having technology that enabled us to print up to 60” large-format documents, we used to work on A4 or A3-sized documents. Thanks to the HP Designjet Printers, we are now able to print out large sheets that we put on the table and can all work from, increasing our efficiency.”

In the depth of line accuracy and image quality
The two main reasons why TOTAL E&P FRANCE chose HP Designjet Printers are their consistently outstanding image quality and the high line accuracy, both of which are crucial criteria in cartography. For TOTAL E&P FRANCE, the correct interpretation of printed geological surveys is critical.

“Since we use the maps for placing drills, the line and distance accuracy is very important; our charts can reach from 7 up to 15 metres (from 275 to 590 inches), depending on our needs. The other decisive criterion is colour, as we now use many colour gradients on the maps where each one represents a specific detail of the ground. With the HP Designjet 4000 Printer series, we obtain better defined gradients - key to interpreting the maps correctly”.

Powered by the new HP Double Swath technology, the HP Designjet 4000 Printer series offers high-speed colour and black-and-white printing up to 42 inches wide, with outstanding line accuracy, image quality, and remote printer management.

The large formats possible and the print quality obtained with this range are also very useful for satellite images. Using 36 or 40-inch images enable TOTAL E&P FRANCE to accentuate details, to interpret correctly certain areas and to decide where the company will drill. “We are big users of the 42-inch format, especially for printing maps to a large scale. The 36-inch format is often not large enough, so we had to start thinking about printing at 42 inches or even 50 inches in order to have a precise scale. For posters, we usually go up to 60 inches with the HP Designjet Z6100 Printer series,” Ducousso explains.

Besides technical printing, TOTAL E&P FRANCE also uses the HP Designjet Z6100 Printer series for printing communication materials concerning large oil projects, including photos. To promote its platforms in Africa, TOTAL E&P FRANCE uses the HP Designjet Printers to publish pictures of the production barges and to show the work being done on these platforms. Thanks to the new HP Designjet photo printers with dedicated photo media, TOTAL E&P FRANCE has improved the quality of these images and is now able to leverage its work among partners and share these prints with people working on other TOTAL E&P FRANCE projects.

From posters to photos, maps to fine art, the HP Designjet Z6100 Printer series delivers exceptional print speeds with outstanding image quality and durability. With an embedded spectrophotometer and HP Vivera inks, this printer series provides accurate and consistent colour for every print.

HP Web Jetadmin is a software that provides a simple, comprehensive way to proactively manage network peripherals and optimise printing productivity. The key printer information, such as capabilities and status, keeps network printers functioning smoothly and anticipates and resolves problems with minimal user impact.

HP Designjet Printers offer enterprises smooth network integration with HP Jetdirect Network cards, supporting large format printing for users working in different operating environments such as Microsoft Windows, Unix and Linux. The Embedded Web Server used by TOTAL E&P FRANCE offers printer monitoring and print job management from the user desktop to speed up the printing workflow in enterprise environments. Users can track print job status, manage queues and submit reprints without the need to reprocess files and reducing network traffic

TOTAL E&P FRANCE’s choice of inks and media is also based on compatibility and reliability, as the print quality is an essential factor to ensure correct interpretation. “We performed some tests and we quickly realised that papers and inks are very closely linked. The high expectation of our clients means that we must be able to print reliable documents and we are very happy with the high colour contrast and the paper quality that we get with HP supplies. We are even saving time as there’s no need for trimming with small margin formats.” With the HP Designjet Z6100 Printer, the company uses approximately 200 rolls from 90 to 175m long (295 – 574ft) of HP Universal Inkjet Bond Paper (80g/m2), 100 rolls of photo media and a small quantity of HP Universal Adhesive Vinyl for outdoor prints.

TOTAL E&P FRANCE considers environmental parameters as important as other factors in its investment choice, and therefore pays attention to cartridge and substrate recycling as well as energy consumption. Ducousso concludes, “We always choose printers that take all these parameters into account. It was very good news for us when HP received the Energy Star qualification for its printers. We look forward to this qualification being integrated into the whole HP printer range, as it would significantly benefit users of large numbers of HP printers like TOTAL E&P FRANCE.”

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Geo: International