Ample Graphics

(from left) Sachin Kala and Rajiv Jagga of Ample at PrintPack

Ample Graphics, the India representative of multiple overseas brands of lamination machines, rigid box-making machines, corrugation machines, ready-to-eat food packaging machines, taping solutions and print beautification machines, announced sales of multiple equipment on the first day of PrintPack.

The deals include a Tiancen KFM106 automatic high-speed dry lamination with a hot-knife with a Jharkhand-based customer; a HRB two-ply corrugation line to a Andhra Pradesh-based customer; and a hot-foil stamping machine to a customer based in Noida. 

Rajeev Jagga, director, Ample Graphics, said, “We are happy with the response from the show, especially with the deals that we cracked on the first day. By the end of the show, we are expecting multiple deals for all our machines showcased here.”

The company showcased seven machines at the show. These include PVC/PET folder-gluer; automatic hot-stamping machine; double-sided tape applicator; octagonal rigid box-making machine; lamination machine; automatic rigid box manufacturing machine; and add-on visual positing machine.

“We are also offering economical solutions to new entrants to segments such as rigid box manufacturing. The offer includes a bottom-glueing machine with a manual taping machine and bubble pressing machine for just Rs 3,99,999,” Jagga said.

Ample has installed close to 650 machines at 125 customer sites. Some of its key customers include Award Offset & Packaging; Prem Industries; Sterling Publishers; Lynx Designers; MJ Global, Printline; Kamakhya Packaging; Parksons Packaging and Saptagiri Packaging.

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Bobst

Three Bobst kit sold at the show so far

Focus Print & Pack, the Sivakasi-based packager, has invested in a Bobst Novafold 110 A2 folder-gluer, which will allow the company to bring folding-glueing capabilities in-house. The latest Bobst folder-gluer investment follows Focus’s double Bobst Novacut buy, the 106 E die-cutter installed in 2018 and the 106 E 3.0 early this year.

Apart from that, Bobst has signed two more Novafold 110 A2 deals. The most recently introduced Bobst folder-gluer will be installed at Ludhiana-based Incite Home Care Products and Hyderabad-based Hyper Pack.

The Novafold 110 A2 folder-gluer is the latest Bobst folder-gluer which was globally launched in January 2022.

Announcing the sale, Arvind Dhand, national sales manager for Indian Subcontinent, BUPC folding carton at Bobst India, said, the Novafold 110 A2 folder-gluer will allow the company to produce a wide range of box styles, in different materials – carton board and corrugation, at speeds of up to 350-m/min. “The machine is capable of producing four- and six-corner boxes, double-wall as well as tubelight and conical type boxes in an open blank size of 1100-mm.”

BK Aggarwal and Praveen Aggarwal, directors at Incite Home Care Products, informed PrintWeek that they were looking for a versatile machine which can do complex jobs. “After doing all detailed research work with various options available in the market we zeroed down on to go with Bobst kit due to its merits,” said Pravin Aggarwal.

“Bobst machines are like swiss watches which we would like to pass on as a gift to next generations and it never loses its accuracy and consistency and is kept as a jewel.”

Praveen Kommareddy, managing director at Hyper Pack, told PrintWeek that it was his dream to own a machine from Bobst but was always distracted by other available options due to its price. “When I discussed in detail with the Bobst team about its versatility, added value and new design, I got fully convinced that I was making the right decision. I am happy today for being a part of the Bobst family and achieving this milestone.”

Arvind Dhand, national sales manager for the Indian Subcontinent, BUPC folding carton at Bobst India, said, the latest Novafold is designed to boost capacity and end-product quality. “It offers a powerful blend of reliability, precision and versatility. The machines can produce a wide variety of box styles across a range of substrates, at speeds of up to 350-m/min. It is one of the most diverse and high performing portfolios available to today’s packaging printers and converters.” 

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Boxtech Banaglore

Ajay A Nayak of Boxtech Banaglore (right) with his colleague at the show

Bengaluru-based folder-gluer manufacturer, Boxtech Bangalore, bagged two orders for the Velocity Plus folder-gluers in the first two days of PrintPack.

Ajay A Nayak of Boxtech Banaglore said, “The exhibition so far has been good for us. We closed two deals in the first two days.”

Among the buyers, Gondals Press is a new account for the company while Changodar-based Cosmos Print Pack is an existing customer. 

Gondals has booked a Velocity Plus 780 folder-gluer. The machine can do side-pasting, crash-lock bottom, and E, F & G-flute cartons.

Cosmos has booked a Velocity Plus 1000. The machine can do lock-bottom, E, F & G-flute corrugated cartons and mono cartons.

Boxtech Bangalore has sold more than 90 Velocity Plus folder-gluers and more than 600 folder-gluers in total.

At the show, Boxtech also had live demonstrations of the Velocity Plus folder-gluer, with a line speed of 250-m/min with crash-lock bottom.

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Canon India 

Puneet Datta of Canon with his team at PrintPack

On the first day of the show at PrintPack India, Canon India announced the installation of its Canon ImagePress C9010 VP at Sonepat, Haryana-based SBM Industries.

Saurabh Gupta, director, SBM Industries, said, “We installed a Canon ImagePress C650 in 2017, and we are really impressed with the performance of the machine. This is the reason we opted for the C9010VP.” 

Gupta added that the company will use the machine for book printing.

Established in 1950 as a paper trading company called Sharda Trading Co, which later emerged to SBM Industries, and a subsidiary SBM Print Media, the company has recently gone for concentric diversification by launching a specialised warehousing and logistic facility within the same area near its printing operations are located.  

Gupta said during the pandemic, the company delivered books to the students of the multiple schools directly to their postal addresses.

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DGM Automation India

Raahhul S Zawarre of Zaware Creative Enterprises (fifth from left) with the others at the show

DGM Automation India inked multiple deals of die-cutters, folder-gluers and foil stamping machines in the first two days of PrintPack.

Among the deals, Pune-based Zaware Creative Enterprises picked up a Technocut 1050 die-cutter and a Smartfold 1100 SL folder-gluer, and Noida-based Lynx Designers & Creators signed for a Technofoil 1050FC foil stamping machine and a Smartfold 1100 SL folder-gluer.

Raahhul S Zawarre, executive director, Zaware Creative Enterprises, said, “We are a commercial printer who diversified into packaging in 2016-17. At the show, we got the die-cutter and the folder-gluer to complete our packaging setup. With these two finishing machines, we will be able to provide complete packaging solutions under one roof.

He added that the company opted for the DGM machines because of its acceptance in the Indian market. “The DGM equipment have filled the gap between capabilities and capacity at right price and local support. I visited multiple DGM and other options users to understand their experiences before finalising the machine because user experience is the key in a capital equipment purchase. Both the machines are future-ready, and upgradation can be made as per the job and future requirement,” he said.

Puneet Agarwal, director, DGM Automation India, said, “We have installed more than 100 machines in the last three-four years with some existing users already. This shows the acceptance of our products in the industry with local factory, demo centre, warehouse and local support. We are happy that a commercial printer like Zaware believes in our products.”

While Zaware is a new account for DGM, Lynx already has a DGM die-cutter on its shopfloor running for the last nine months. After experiencing the performance and support from DGM, the company decided to go for the same partner for its next purchase of hot-foil stamping and folder-gluer kit.

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Emerging Graphics

Anuj Lamba of Pictura at the Emerging Graphics stall

Navi Mumbai-based Emerging Graphics has announced the sale of two Iecho digital cutting systems at the five-day PrintPack exhibition. New Delhi-based Pictura opted for the Iecho BK3-1713 digital cutting machine for special cutting jobs while the second machine, Iecho PK0705 Plus, was picked up by Ludhiana-based Khushiram & Sons.

Wedding albums specialist Pictura opted for the Iecho BK3-1713 digital cutting machine for special cutting jobs. Anuj Lamba, owner, Pictura, said, “We have been in the industry for the past 25 years. Recently, we upgraded our operations to do specialised jobs for the advertising industry.”

As part of its upgradation process, the company opted for the Iecho kit to do special short run jobs on substrates such as MDF, hardboard, paper-cutting, leatherite, and more. 

“We have laser machines, but it does not work well on the aforementioned substrates,” Lamba told PrintWeek. “The Iecho machine is capable of doing jobs that we cannot do on a laser.”

The machine table size is 1,700x1,300-mm and can cut substrates up to 17-mm.

The second deal was signed with Akshat Gupta of Khushiram & Sons. Gupta, who is also the director of Hiero Graphics, said that the investment was made to cater to specialised and customised packaging.

Gupta is the fourth generation of Khushiram and is passionate about printing. He has been experimenting with latest print and packaging technologies and the investment was part of that endeavour. 

Tushar Pande, director, Emerging Graphics, said, “We are honoured to have more and more customers trusting our products as well as services. This has further resulted in the addition of new products to our offerings.”

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Esko 

(l-r) Karan Talwar of Esko, Deepanshu Goel of Creative Graphics and Arnab Maiti of Esko

Creative Graphics Solutions purchased two licences of the latest generation high pdf editor ArtPro + Advanced from Esko during PrintPack.

Deepanshu Goel, founder, Creative Graphics, said, “Creative Graphics’ vision is to keep on upgrading and adopting world class infrastructure to give consistent and error-free quality. We are marching towards that.”

Karan Talwar, sales director south Asia, Esko, said, “Creative Graphics has been the front runner in the adoption of the latest and best technology from Esko for its pre-press activities. It’s a natural progression for the company to adapt to the latest generation pdf-based editing through ArtPro+ Advanced and seamless integration with its existing Esko Automation Engine server workflow.”

Creative Graphics has six production units in Ahmedabad, Noida, Baddi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai.

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Heidelberg India

(l-r) Harsh and Sandeep Bhargava of Kumar Printers with Samir Patkar and Deepak Walia of Heidelberg

Manesar-based Kumar Printers has signed a deal with Heidelberg for the installation of its Speedmaster CX 104. The CX 104 is a seven-colour plus coater press, with an IST UV system and Image Control. Kumar Printers has recently installed the Proman Prinect software to create the Digital reporting system for the press room.

It will be Heidelberg’s first CX 104 in North India and the machine is expected to be installed soon. Heidelberg has signed two more deals for the CX 104, but did not disclose the details.

Samir Patkar said, “The North Indian market is really developing as a packaging and publication and commercial market and the CX 104 is a press perfectly suited for these applications.”

The CX 104 press was unveiled to a global online audience during the Showtime livestream event which also coincides with the China Print show in Beijing. It can handle stock thicknesses from 0.03mm – 1mm. "The press is equipped with Plus Feeder and Plus Deliver and artificial intelligence which helps operators to reduce the makeready time up to 70%. Speedmaster CX 104 coating unit is designed to reduce the change over time up to 50%,” said Patkar.

Kumar Printers is a Heidelberg house, and over the years the company has grown and is well known in the packaging segment. “Kumar is making an investment in our latest technology and we are all very excited.”

Kumar Printers specialises in mono carton packaging among others. “The Speedmaster CX 104 emphasise a lot on increasing the efficiency with all its features like Intelliline and intellirun. “It makes changeover of anilox rollers has been simplified, lighter, and is easily portable. The changeover time too has been reduced drastically – a reduction of 75% time reduction. With this investment, Kumar is securing some of the efficiency challenges every packaging converter is going through.”

Heidelberg has signed some more deals for the Speedmaster CX 104 kit but did not reveal details. “We will do it as the confirmations come through,” Patkar said, before signing off.

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Impel-Welbound

Impel has booked three BindLines and one hard-cover line

The Impel-Welbound stall at PrintPack is busy. The star attraction is the BindLine which is its inline configuration kit for gathering-binding-trimming. Some of the names of customers who have finalised the BindLine kit are: Coact Printers in Mumbai (book print exporter to Africa); CDC in Kolkata; Ikon printers in Nairobi. Meanwhile, DP Printing in Okhla has opted for a hard-cover line.

Team Impel has been busy with demos of the automatic case-binding machine plus other machines for hardcover bookmaking. The post-press manufacturer has showcased three types of binders which can produce 2000 books per hour to 5000 BPH, each offering upgradability to a binding line (by adding a gatherer before or a trimmer later) during the five-day PrintPack show.

The straight-line gathering-binder is connected to a trimmer configuration and occupies about 250 sq metres, with the length being more than 20 metres.

Pallippuram Sajith, the managing director of Impel Services (A Welbound group company told PrintWeek, "Many binderies in India cannot boast such a space luxury." he added, "There is a trick to reduce this requirement by 40% - and bring in a 180-degree turn as the between the gathered books and the feeling into the binder. Then there is half the cost of capital and power per book that you can aim at, compared to your current costs."

In addition to a complete bookbinding line installed in a 15 metres x 8 metres area of the booth, is the world's first six clamp binder that can be connected inline to a trimmer. Furthermore, there is India's first short-run binder that can read a QR code and change the job within one minute. An automatic case maker that makes 12 cases per minute, a book block feeder that can feed stacked book blocks into these binders

Also, there are the 2,000 books per hour short-run perfect binder that can run one book at a time or be connected inline to a gatherer. This kit is expected to cater to the digital print and offset requirements in one go. The company boasts, that there is no such solution in book printing now.

This PrintWeek scribe recommends a visit to Hall 9, where Impel-Welbound has laid out a range of bookbinding solutions that will provide the answers. Bookbinders think bookbinding equipment requires a lot of space to install a line. The Made in India manufacturer has destroyed that myth.

These machines were launched in 2022. The USPs of the kit: Bookbinding – short or medium or long runs, at the lowest investment, power, labour and space costs per book. "For a book printer, it is important that they produce books with the best of quality, at the shortest time consuming minimal labour, space and power. There is no other place in the world, they can get a close look at this – and plan for investments," signed off Sajith.

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Komori India

Sangam Khanna of Komori at the show

It’s been one of the best first days at any PrintPack shows for Komori, said Sangam Khanna, managing director at Komori India, while announcing the signing of five Komori press signing deals.

The five presses will be headed to Kanpur, Aurangabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Lucknow, and all the customers are print-publishing converters. “We were expecting packaging closures, but this has come as a surprise to us. This is a key indicator that the publishing or what we call, the semi-commercial segment, which was supposedly dead is not. It has suddenly bounced back. It has really surprised us.”

Though schools have reopened, what we understand is that over a period of time, the print runs have shrunk. The publishers are scared of printing large quantities, and carrying an inventory, said Khanna. “Most of them have web presses and want to complement these old web presses with new sheetfed presses. So, now the print runs are anywhere between 3,000 to 10,000.”

Those the presses signed are four- and five-colour configured, they aren’t basic machines. “These are high-productivity presses, and when I say high-productivity it means that the presses are fitted with technology which reduces makeready time, wastages, are fast and the per-copy cost is low,” explained Khanna. “The KHS-AI technology eliminates downtime between jobs and speeds on the fly density changes.”

Before signing off, Khanna informed PrintWeek that Komori is on the verge of signing another deal, a GL 640, which will be revealed tomorrow.

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Monotech Systems

(l-r) TP Jain and Akash Kumar at the Monotech stall

Monotech Systems announced a deal for its KnowzzleJet-DL high-speed monochrome inkjet web press on the second day of PrintPack. The machine will go to Meerut-based Arihant Publications.

The monochrome inkjet press is equipped with Memjet Duralink and can print web widths from 8- to 26-inches at a speed of upto 650-ft/min and high-quality printing upto 1600x1600-dpi resolutions. It is available in roll-to-roll, roll-to-sheet and roll-to-fold configurations. It uses water-based pigment (black) printing ink.

Tej Prakash Jain, managing director, Monotech Systems, said, “We are committed to the books and commercial printers, and are offering products related to the segment. We are happy to be associated with Meerut-based Arihant Publications.”

He added that Monotech Systems is capable of providing the entire solution for short to medium run digital book production. 

At its stall, Monotech Systems displayed a complete range of digital printing (label, commercial and publishing), digital print enhancement and super wide-format UV inkjet printing, large-format scanning and printing solutions.

“As PrintPack returns after a gap of three years, we have high expectations from the show. We see this as an opportunity to showcase our new products and capabilities and establish a physical connection again with the wider market,” Jain added.

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Zhongke

(l-r) Saket and Akshay Kanoria of TCPL, Rohit and Pooja Rajpal of Zhongke, and Bishwajit Naha of TCPL

TCPL Packaging has installed two new Zhongke ZK 6421 automatic intelligent rigid box-making machines at the newly acquired company, Creative Offset in Greater Noida.

The new kit is capable of producing small jewellery boxes to large frame boxes of up to 400x600x120-mm, besides high-end mobile boxes.

TCPL is one of the most promising companies with a strong technical team and under the leadership of Saket Kanoria, managing director at TCPL, is expanding into different segments of packaging.

Before the TCPL acquisition, Creative had deployed a Chinese-make machine. “The newly acquired Creative Offset is into manufacturing mobile boxes for Samsung. We wanted to take it to the next level, and were keen on investment in equipment which can offer consistent quality, high production and versatility to do various formats,” said Akshay Kanoria, executive director at TCPL.

Before investing in the Zhongke kit, TCPL did a bit of market research to find out the best option and found that the Zhongke technology ticked all the boxes. “Its stability, efficiency and most importantly, service and support, tilted the scale in favour of Zhongke.” He added, “The Zhongke machine has automated operations, and requires just two persons to run it. The preset-enabled wastages are minimal.”

According to Rohit Rajpal, managing director at Zhongke India, the ZK 6421 machine is inspired by the box-on-demand concept and the intelligent machine is the world’s first fully automatic machine to auto-adjust upon feeding the parameters. 

“This makes the makeready really short.” Rajpal added, “What is really impressive about the machine is that it can produce various shapes, hence bringing a new and refreshing tone to the products.”

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Gondals Press purchases six machines

Pankaj Gondal of Gondals Press (extreme right) with the others at the show

Manesar, Haryana-based Gondals Press had its shopping cart full in the first two days of PrintPack. At the show, the company, which has a complete commercial and packaging setup, booked at least six machines from different manufacturers.
 

These included a rigid box line from 3S Graphic Solutions; a folder-gluer from Boxtech Bangalore; two die-cutting machines with foil from Amritsar-based Gurinder Engineer; a thermal laminator and sheeter from Bengaluru-based PS Graphics, Box Stitching Machine from Ahmedabad, Rattan and a bailing machine from Joy-D-Design.

Pankaj Gondal of Gondals Press said, “We decided to add these machines so that we can serve our customers better, with all equipment under one roof, from mono cartons to corrugated boxes to rigid boxes. The PrintPack show was the best place to finalise the deals.”

Established in 1939 by Shri RP Gondal, the company’s head office is in Connaught Place, New Delhi, with the production plant in Manesar, spread across 30000-sqft area. The father-son duo, Prashant and Pankaj Gondal, run the company.

The plant is equipped with two Heidelberg five-colour CD machines and a complete commercial and packaging set up. Recently, it also installed a complete corrugation plant from Xinguang and an automatic flute laminator from Youbond China.

With 83 years of experience behind it, today Gondals Press is looking towards maintaining and growing the family business by adopting new technologies and catering to the ever-changing needs of a client base.