Mukund doubles production with Bobst

Spread across three acres of land with 1,00,000-sqft constructed area, Mukund has a production capacity of 3,000 tonnes per month and an in-house four-colour printing facility. 

Besides the Bobst FFG, the company has a European strapping machine, which is capable of making 18,000-cases/ hr with four-color printing and die-cutting.

In one year, the machine has doubled the company’s production from 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes per month and a maximum number of jobs are being done on the Bobst case-maker. Being a fast-growing company, as of March 2023, it has recently crossed the Rs 100-crore turnover mark. 

Started as a small company in 1994, known as Ashoka Packaging by Ritesh Kumar and another company Mukund Packaging in 2011 by Ankur Gupta, Mukund Corrupack was incorporated by Ritesh Kumar, Ankur Gupta, Rajesh Kumar and Ankit Gupta in 2016.

The Bobst flexo folder-gluer (FFG) is an inline case-maker to convert a corrugated board single and double wall into RSC or simple die-cut boxes and where all converting operations are carried out in one pass, including printing, slotting, die-cutting, folding-gluing, bundling with inline strapping.

The Bobst machines are known for their longevity and reliability. This year, one of the Bobst FFG machines will complete a successful run of 10 years in India.

“The machine is running well. It has been a little over a year and production has been going smoothly. We are happy with the consistent output. We are doing most of our jobs on the Bobst machine itself,” Ankur Gupta said.

He said finalising the machine during the pandemic in May 2020 over virtual calls was tough. However, the team had done their research in the market. They had not seen the machine running before even once but their research was thorough with comparative charts for similar machines available in the market. 

“The market reviews were good with regards to the Bobst machine and the local service and process team was a big boost. We trusted the brand and had heard good reviews in the market regarding the machines while researching, and we were convinced,” Gupta said.

He added, “Production has definitely increased from the production levels before the Bobst machine. We are running the machine for 16 hours with up to 2 lakh boxes production per day. We are running at 70% capacity”

He said since it is a rapid set machine, the changeover time is less, precision is good, speed is high and it is ideal for RSC cartons.

“We have not faced any difficulties till now. The Bobst team is well-trained and knowledgeable. The sales and services team were definitely a plus point,” he added.

About the corrugated board market, Gupta said, “Right now, we are growing rapidly and planning to expand in the near future as well. The corrugated market has grown fast but now it is not growing as much as it was before. Everyone has spare capacity now. It will grow and increase even further but not right now. As and when more regulations on plastics are put, the corrugated board will grow.”