Anil Bhatia: "Drupa has been an exciting showcase of the latest offerings in the print industry"

Manroland India recorded multi-million dollar sales revenue for web offset presses from the leading Indian newspapers - The Times of India and Hindustan Times and a brand new R706 LV sheetfed press order from Hira Prints, Mumbai.

Manroland also confirmed that it would continue to sell and develop our entire product range and announced a tie up with Benny Landa and his “nano-digital” technology. At Drupa, we brought the philosophy to a new development level. Manroland Sheetfed highlighted the latest innovation – combining the inkjet technology with conventional offset printing process.

We believe the best solution is to combine the best of both worlds, adding inkjet variable printing capabilities to the offset quality and speed in full colour printing. We call it ‘hybrid printing’ to benefit from the low cost of offset production and the high value of the digital print.  

In addition, on show at Drupa 2012, we launched the latest version of Manroland’s InlineFoiler, featuring an indexing system that offers up to 55% waste reduction of the cold foil. A patented vacuum-based loop memory makes saving of cold foil in the channel and format relating to job orders with minimum format of 390 mm a reality. This foil indexing is unique as it can be used in both variations – single-reel or multi-reel operation.

In light of the tremendous interest and attention we received from the Indian print industry, we would say that the greatest challenge was to manage the huge and overwhelming response to our presence at Drupa 2012. This was spread across the commercial, newspaper and packaging printing sectors. Manroland recorded over 3,000 visitors at its stall overall.

Most of the products highlighted at Drupa are already commercially available globally, including the Indian market – such as the InlineFoiler Prindor with indexing function. Additionally, the new hybrid printing concept in sheetfed– combining inkjet and offset technology is already exhibited at our Print Technology Center and will be soon available to customers worldwide.

Manroland’s commitment to the Indian market is underlined by the simultaneous launch of all Manroland products globally and in the Indian market. A very good example is the APL – automatic plate-loading system installed at The Times of India, Mumbai which is a one-of-its-kind system installed globally.

We were delighted at the excellent response from the Indian printing sector to our presence at Drupa. The group was a healthy mix of commercial, newspaper printing and packaging printing firms who are keen to upgrade to the latest technology.

Even though Drupa 2012 has already been announced as the ultimate inkjet show with many suppliers presenting solutions to print in full colour with inkjet technology, we know that many of these new solutions don’t meet print market requirements because either the print quality level is not yet reaching the offset standard, or the cost per copy is far above the cost for offset products.

There have been several new exciting concepts launched at Drupa 2012 – some of the notable ones are Benny Landa’s Nano technology and the hybrid printing concept, which we are very excited about. 

There’s an interesting trend of diversification in the offset printing industry over the last couple of years. Several major commercial and label printing houses have successfully diversified in the packaging printing sector. This highlights a growing demand for packaging printing in India, which is buoyant and reflective of the string growth impetus from the end consuming sectors such as FMCG, pharma and retail.

For the print industry at large, Drupa has been an exciting showcase of the latest offerings in the print industry ranging from Nano technology, green inks to new innovations in packaging print. This reflects the strong sentiment in the print industry, which has been reeling under high material costs in the past couple of years. It highlights that the print industry is very much alive and thriving but in a new form of “print efficiency”.

My takeaway: “Efficiency in Print”, how to combine on demand production, customisation and high productivity solutions to yield maximum returns, using the latest technology offered by the print manufacturers.