The company has been adding to its production facility in Ludhiana for the past few years now, from upgrading existing equipment with the latest technology to adding new equipment.

Dimple Packaging was established by Shree Ram Ji Das back in 1960. He was later joined by his son, Jagdish Kalra. Today, the company is run by the third generation of Kalra brothers — Komal Kalra, the eldest, looks after the functioning of business activities; Kapil Kalra looks after marketing and Pankaj Kalra is responsible for production and deliveries.

The Kalra brothers visited the Bobst booth during PrintPack India in Delhi in May and finalised the Novafold in June.

From 2010, the company began adding folder-gluers and die-cutters. Its first machine from Bobst was a Novacut 106 die-cutter and an Ambition 106 A2 folder-gluer installed in 2012. After that the company invested in yet another Novacut 106 in 2015 followed by two window patching machines from Heiber & Shroder in 2017 and 2019 respectively.

In 2020, the company decided to go in for a machine from the far east. However, due to certain performance issues, the company took a call and invested in yet another Bobst machine this year in June.

“We evaluated a few other machines in the market, even used one of them for two years and then came to a conclusion where we felt the Bobst machine was the perfect fit for our requirements. Being an existing Bobst customer, it was easy for us to pick knowing the service we receive from the Bobst team and the machine quality as well. The versatility, make and speed of the machine was what convinced us to go in for the Bobst machine.” Pankaj Kalra of Dimple said.

The Novafold is expected to increase the company’s capacity and boost production. The folder-gluer, with four and six-corner as well as corrugation attachments, is capable of running straight line, lock-bottom jobs as well as various special design cartons at speeds of up to 350-metres/min. Easy to operate, the folder-gluer delivers consistent and superb end-product quality while being robust and reliable at the same time.

“We are growing steadily and look forward to doubling our production in the near future. Post-pandemic we saw a steady growth in the demand for packaging overall and this helped us take a decision to expand our set up,” said Kalra. “The company’s automation exercise will continue as manual operation doesn’t produce quality at fast speed. We have found that automation is the way to avoid labour problems and do quality production.”

Dimple converts more than 500 tonnes of paper, kraft paper and packaging board in its 150,000-sqft constructed facility. Around 23 printing units of the company consume 100 printing plates in round-the-clock operations. The total area of the facility is six acres and the company employs over 400 people.