The half-day seminar saw leading names of the printing industry such as Vikas Ghai of Sterling Printers, Anuj Bhargava of Kumar Labels, Dharamvir Jain of Paras Offset, Rakesh Bagai of Rakesh Press, Shobhit Bhargava of HBD Packaging, among several others, exchange ideas and concerns that plague the label and packaging printing industry.

In his inaugural address, Ramu Ramanthan, editor, PrintWeek India stressed on the need for conclusive statistical data and research about the printing and packaging industry in India. He shared some preliminary findings of the research conducted by PrintWeek India, which will be published by the end of the year.

Setting the tone of the discussion, SM Ram Prasad of Epson, shared technology stories from Epson. He started his presentation by re-defining how Epson is perceived and said that he prefers to call Epson as digital innovators. He noted that in last 10 years Epson’s industrial solutions' group (which also manufacturers machines for the printing and packaging industry) has been gaining lot of traction. “Epson believes in automation of manufacturing and digitisation of digital printing, he stated. In his presentation, he also provided delegates a sneak-preview of the upcoming machines and technologies for the label and packaging printing industry from Epson.

Closely following the session, Sachin Shardul, technical editor, PrintWeek shared the tech specs of packaging and creative repro print jobs from top samples at the PrintWeek India Awards 2013. Later in the day, Sekhar and Munish Agarwal of Janus Packaging shared the dais with Ramu Ramanathan and Ramprasad for an interactive panel discussion. The panel discussion deliberated on many myths and concerns regarding the feasibility of digital label printing technology.

Providing a printer’s perspective Arvind Sekhar of Sai Packaging shared how Sai Packaging could transform and streamline their business operations since they adopted digital into their printing units. In October 2012, Sai Packaging commissioned India’s first Epson SurePress L-4033AW for its Bengaluru printing facility. “We have done over 150 jobs on the Surepress and haven’t faced even a single rejection,” Sekhar said while discussing his experience with the press.

Asked about the shade differences between flexo and digital label printers, Sekhar replied, “We prepared a new shade card and the l*a*b values of the Surepress was compared and calibrated with the shade card from flexo press. This was an extensive 30 days exercise but it resulted in one-to-one match. Now, it’s the value of invoice that dictates the printing technology we opt rather than the colour matching ability.” He also added, “A top brass of a leading flexo press manufacturer after its visit to Sai Packaging left very impressed about the precision of the Surepress to print even the small prints (fonts), which is very difficult for a digital label printer.”  

This included: if a primer pre-coating is required; colour consistency and colour management; the issue of obsolescence of press; the opacity of white ink and how much opacity can the press guarantee on a single pass? Which is your effective printing speed for four colours (CMYK)? Will the speed be hampered if I print white or any extra colour? By how much? The sustainability of inks; and the fading of inks.

Finally, there was an elaborate discussion on costing models. Questions from the delegates indicated that this is a pressing concern among converters: the notion of operational costing.

The session concluded with lunch and networking; plus guests had an opportunity to look at the Surepress samples that the Bodhi team were displaying.