The Bindwel-Imtech agreement was signed by Pallippuram Sajith, representing the Bindwel board and R Suresh Kumar, who helms operations at Imtech and possesses more than two decades of experience in the post-print segment.

Speaking to the media, Viswaprasad Nair, the director and COO of Bindwel told PrintWeek, "The increasing demand for Bindwel's machine has propelled the Bengaluru facility to reach full capacity utilisation, demonstrating the product's success in the market.” Nair added, "Bindwell aims to build models that need high-end automation and superior in-line capabilities. Through these, we have managed to serve many of our customers in the upgradation and upsizing processes of their binderies."

Decades ago, the starting point in the Bindwel journey was single-clamp binders. Nair said, "Over time, our customers have demanded higher precision, accuracy and productivity from the single-clamp machines."

Now, Bindwel has forayed into the digital post-press market with a raft of offerings under the SigLoch brand. Nair explained, "We needed an effective blend of scale, innovation and dynamism in our manufacturing ecosystem that involves over 6,000 components and interacts with over 200 vendor partners. In this sense, the Imtech facility is a ready facility that adds agility and speed to our system to serve especially the mass market of single-clamp and digital post-press customers".

R Suresh Kumar has built an impressive roster, starting as a service engineer and mastering the application knowledge of bookbinding through dogged hard work and experience. Kumar was also fortunate to be mentored by technical experts from Hindustan Unilever (Chemicals Division), who represented National Adhesives.

R Suresh Kumar developed a single-clamp perfect binder branded Autobind that championed the cause of bookbinding firms with infrastructure issues, be it stable electricity supply or skilled operators. Suresh Kumar said, "It's very fulfilling to witness the Imtech operations converge with one of the globally known manufacturers of bookbinding machines." Kumar added, "Bindwel, like us, values the growth of customers and employees. Our team will continue to work with the best in the industry and will now co-create relevant solutions in perfect binding. Suresh Kumar will join the Bindwel team as the vice president - operations.

Anilkumar B Nair, the sales director of Bindwel, said, "Bindwel has been witnessing its best years of growth. We are humbled and encouraged by the realisation that we could be the largest manufacturers of single-clamp and six-clamp binders for the commercial print industry, globally. Our in-line bookbinding solutions have caught the interest of the book printing industry in Africa and other markets that mirror India's growth a few decades ago." Anilkumar B Nair said, "Now we are entering the digital post-press segment with solutions that will help the digital print service bureaus to offer offset quality finishing. We are upping our service levels, our key reason to exist in this market. The merger with Autobind gives us more strength and endurance to serve the market with agile products and solutions.".

Suresh Mahaeswaran Nair, the director at Bindwel-Stelda group, said, "I am excited to be part of this merger. This adds scale, geographical advantage, and depth and width to our team's experience. Bindwel has taken up the mission to provide enriching solutions beyond the expectations of our consumers, and I see this merger building lots of energy for our unified teams."

Today, Suresh Nair is an evangelist for medium to large-scale automation for binders and leads the innovation programs for Bindwel.