The Lovely way of making books, diaries and calendars
One of the largest print firms in Sivakasi with the 27-acre factory is Lovely; and their brand occupies a unique place in new markets.
Established in 1961, Lovely Offset Printers was founded by C Kadarkarai. The three brothers, K Selvakumar (financial director), K Vijayakumar (managing director) and K Senthilkumar (marketing director) oversee a team of 450 staff.
Says Selvakumar (in the picture): "Today, most housewives want to keep tab of monthly expenses. They want a good, easy-to-use diary. Plus, there is our wedding card business, which is a regular source of income. And finally, there are the books."
There are two things to note about the plant. One, it’s busy. There is none of the doom and gloom that pervades the rest of the print industry. Two, the size and scale is impressive, with books, diaries and cards in deadline-mode
The Kodak Trendsetter 800 platesetter handles platemaking of the entire plant.
The raft of printing machines includes brands like Mitsubishi, Heidelberg and Komori.
The SM-102/8 can print both eight colours and four/four colours in a single pass.
The Lovely team is particularly proud of the Heidelberg CD-74. The UV press has six printing units with twin coaters in the rear. The machine has three inter-deck driers and one end-of-press drier.
Most of the machines are equipped with auto-plate changers and CIP4.
The Heidelberg web offset press 16-4/4 runs at 40,000 impressions per hour. It has 630mm cut-off.
The Harris Model M-120 web-offset press has a cut-off of 492mm.
On the shop floor is a wide variety of jobs from books that are bound with PUR, to coffee table books with case-making, to eco-friendly textbooks, to all type of diaries which are distributed through 32 franchises around the country.
In the picture is the Acoro A5 perfect binder + Automatic Gatherer ZTM1571 with 18 station
The Acoro A5 binder produces up to 100,000 softcover books a day. It is upgraded with VPN/PUR nozzle system.
The Acoro A5 is a 20-clamp binder with in-line trimmer, which operates at 6000 imp/hr
The Diamant MC 35 binder from Muller Martini is deployed for hardcase book binding
The Muller Martini Merit S three knife trimmer + conveyors work in harmony with the existing Acoro A5 binding line
A complete hard cover book line with a Horauf case maker (in the picture), a Kolbus book block preparation unit and a Muller Martini casing-in line can produce upto 50,000 books a day
Books, diaries and stationery - round the year operation
Paper handling and value addition: both are the thrust areas
For the moment, the brothers are eyeing packaging. For this, they have made an investment in a Heidelberg Varimatrix die-cutter and other post-press kit.
The packaging post-press also includes Yoco foil stamper/die-cutter and two folder gluers.
The Bagempem folder-gluer
The Paktek GM-550 folder-gluer operates at 400 mtrs/min.
The packaging division at Lovely is capable of producing half-a-million cartons a day without any sweat.
The screen printing unit has two kit. One from Sakurai and the other from Seria.
The Itoh-Robocut computerised guillotine.
The Kappa board sheets used for covers is slit into four parts.
The Ochsner edge gilding machine is deployed for premium diaries with value addtions.
The 450-strong team forms the backbone at Lovely.
The company has installed windmills and solar cells to combat the power cuts in the town.
The Champion automatic cold lamination machine is a part of battery of hot and cold lamination kit on its shopfloor.
Selvakumar says, company’s core business is the diaries, which are often ordered by companies. Even in the tough times, the runs vary from 5,000 to 200,000 copies, at an average of 10,000 per job. Sometimes it is as low of 500 copies.
Special storage systems with forklifts.
A look at the plant where diary and calendar production for 2015 is in full flow.
The Lovely way of making books, diaries and calendars
Sivakasi's Lovely Offset has consciously been building a brand. Today, more than 70% of its softcover and hardcover products are exported to Africa and the European Union. Even as one admires its hardcover books, its core business is the diaries, which are often ordered by corporates.
PrintWeek India's Ramu Ramanathan visits the 27-acre plant when the diary and calendar production for 2015 was in full flow. A snapshot.