Small centres rule the roost
Even as we are gathered here, there is news of a fully loaded Komori press being installed in Cannanore.

Commercial printers in small towns print coupons, tickets and ballot papers are mostly produced through a combination of offset and digital presses to ensure variability through printing numbers and barcodes. These printers who were earlier looking at pre-owned or refurbished presses are now opting for a new press. Komori’s Enthrone presses have been the preferred choice of such printers. For example, in small towns like Ludhiana and Kala Amb in North India, Insight has installed at least five Enthrone 429 presses.

However, in these small centres, there are packaging converters who are opting for higher configured presses with coaters. Sai Swaram in Vadodara (Gujarat) has installed a Heidelberg CX 102 seven-colour plus coater with Multicolor technology; Ruchira Packaging in Kala Amb (Himachal Pradesh) has a Komori GL640 with coater, while Agarwal Print Media in Meerut (Uttar Pradesh) has installed an RMGT 920-4 colour UV press.

Peter Rego of Heidelberg says, “We are seeing a trend where customers are modernising and getting in faster and smarter machines – presses that can print more than 100 short-run jobs in 24 hours, or 325,000 sheets or more in a day, at low wastage with consistent top quality. The mantra is work smart – reduce touch points and wastage.”

According to Neeraj Dargan, managing director at Manroland Sheetfed, the major trend shift is towards value addition, online and inline accessories like specialised coating systems, UV, drip-off etc for finishing the job in one go. “Also, there has been an acceptance of higher automation in quality and productivity tools on the machines,” he says. Manroland’s Evolution 700, an eight-colour straight printing press with inline coating unit at Jash Packaging is India’s first.

Small centres are the main buyers for the new machines now. 50% of the machines are with coaters and UV-preparation. More and more customers are looking for LED UV for value addition.”

Indot: Case-study
Indot is headquartered in Chalakudy in Kerala. The parent company, Indot Color World is a five centre operation for photo albums with centres in Chennai and Pune which is powered by a fleet of HP Indigos. In addition, there are multiple collection centres across Kerala.

Ever since the firm invested in two Fujifilm Acuity Advance Select machines, there is bullishness in the air. This flatbed UV inkjet can print on any substrate – plastics, wood, acrylic, glass, board, metal, ceramics, textiles, carpeting, and more.

Operations at Indot on the Acuity Select are an eye-opener. Commercial printers print on paper. Packaging converters extend it a bit more. But Indot raises the bar with an array of finished products.

Today, Indot is a leader in photo album production and photobooks. The company reigns supreme. Sushil Kumar, managing partner of Indot says, “Leading photographers seek customised and unique products, based on their themes for the wedding/ event. So they have been approaching us for better finished products.”

(This is the part-IV of Ramu Ramanathan’s talk on a houseboat in Kochi at the session hosted by All India Federation of Master Printers and the GC members on 4 February 2018)