Established in 2005, PM Digital Products is a partnership company and the digital wing of 60-years-old Palaniappa Brothers, a book publisher and printer. The machine was supplied by the Indian distributor of Scodix machines, Monotech Systems.

P Chellappan, managing partner, PMDP said, “This technology has been introduced for the first time in Asia. Digital foiling is the main attraction of the machine. Digital foiling is expensive and we are targeting segments where a budget is not a constraint. We opted for this machine to beat the competition. We want to make print more appealing and want our customers to see his print enhanced products.”

Chellappan said the company always wants to keep updating and investing in latest technology is one of the ways to do it. “We firmly believe that printing will go nowhere without finishing, so post-press is more important in the present scenario, then press and pre-press. So most of our investments are in the area of finishing and enhancement. We believe that it is the only thing which will improve our revenue stream,” he said.

Now, the company is targeting multiple segments and regular commercial segments like invitation cards, wedding cards. “The biggest advantage with any digital foiling machine is variable data printing. Recently, we have done VDP on more than 2000 wedding cards. The cover was personalised, name and address on the cards were personalised and foiled,” Chellappan said.

Along with the commercial segment, the company is also targeting packaging. “Digital foiling is expensive compared to conventional. Our target will be niche segments of packaging. We are partnering with Label Kingdom to enter into packaging printing. Label Kingdom’s specialisation is in packaging and our expertise is in digital, thus it will be a perfect marriage. We will take care of production side and Label Kingdom will take care of marketing side,” he said.

With the new Scodix, the company has launched new brand ‘Print Enhance’.

Chellappan said in print enhancement, cost is a challenge, because of its running cost. “If people will compare normal screen print UV with Scodix then we do not have any chance.  We can tap the markets where cost is not an issue but volume is not in that market,” he said.

P Chellapan is a production engineer and software development is his hobby.