The Smartfold 800SL installed in November last year has enabled minimising labour, time and quality. “Soon after the pandemic, there was an increase of demand from our customers in the food, pesticide and pharma segments. The increase was close to 40% from our existing customers,” said Patel.

Established in 2002, by Patel and brother Rashmin Patel, the company’s focus has  been on producing carton packaging for FMCG customers. Patel’s son Amir joined the business in 2014. Since then, Patel has been handling finance; his brother looks after production, and Amir handles new developments and customer relations.

Besides the new DGM Smartfold, Perfect Print & Pack is equipped with two six-colour Heidelberg presses, two Excel Maxima die-cutting machines, Ample-supplied Tiancen (Shanghai Tiancen Machinery Manufacturing) dry lamination machine, and two Perfecta paper cutting machines, among other manual converting kits.

Prior to the installation of the DGM, the company outsourced folding-gluing jobs, mainly when it came to four-corner and crash lock bottom cartons. However, during the lockdown, it became difficult to outsource. Hence the company engaged the labour to work in its premises and complete the work.

“Around 25 persons used to be engaged who could produce only 20,000 cartons in a day. It became time-consuming,” said Patel.

That’s when we decided to invest in an automatic folding-gluing machine.

Patel said he opted for DGM Smartfold 800SL because, one, it was a perfect fit for his budget, and two, the machine was available for installation in quick time. “There was no way we could keep our customers waiting for the delivery; hence we quickly invested in the DGM.”

Since then, Patel said, his company has been prompt in dispatching the finished cartons, and his plant is comparatively free of printed sheets. “We can now handle approximately 1-lakh cartons of lock-bottom, and 50,000 cartons of four-corner with only six persons operating the machine.”