The six-colour press with an inline coater is the third Heidelberg press installed at the plant in less than 16 months of starting operation and sixth in Parksons across locations in the last three years.

“The response from our clients for this (Sri City) plant has exceeded our expectations. This meant we had to advance our scheduled capacity building. The XL 106 ticked all the boxes in terms of our requirements- speed, automation and most importantly the quality of production that we can expect from the press,” said Gaurang Desai, the chief operating officer of Parksons Packaging.

The XL 106 press runs at speeds up to 18,000sph and has been configured with all the latest technology from Heidelberg.  Packed with several automation features, the press is equipped with the latest Push-to-Stop technology, that allows the press to autonomously change over and continue to print until the operator interrupts, and includes automatic plate-change and wash-ups.

“This is one of the most unique presses to be installed in India in terms of automation. We believe it has the highest level of productivity for a press with an optimal efficiency of over 50 million sheets per annum,” said Peter Rego, business head – equipment sales, Heidelberg India.

It also features Prinect Inpress Control 2, a closed-loop colour system which automatically controls register and colour on the go with respect to LAB values without any operator intervention or sheet pulls.

“The configuration of the press is such that we can not only print more with every run but also produce more jobs per day because of the level of automation and intelligence that is built in it,” said Desai.

Talking about overall machine expansion at the Sri City plant, Desai said, “With this new press, we have now three brand new  Heidelberg  presses (First CX 102 was installed in April’17 and the second one in Feb’ 18) and the post-press line has also undergone major expansion with addition of four die-cutters, two folder-gluers from Bobst, MK Easymatrix 106,  foil stamping machine from Heidelberg and a corrugation machine. This plant is now 400 people strong when compared to a team size of 43 when we kick-started operations here.”