PrintPack 2022: Komori announces five orders booked on day one

The five presses will be headed to Kanpur, Aurangabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Lucknow, and all the customers are print-publishing converters. “We were expecting packaging closures, but this has come as a surprise to us. This is a key indicator that the publishing or what we call, the semi-commercial segment, which was supposedly dead is not. It has suddenly bounced back. It has really surprised us.”

Though schools have reopened, what we understand is that over a period of time, the print runs have shrunk. The publishers are scared of printing large quantities, and carrying an inventory, said Khanna. “Most of them have web presses and want to complement these old web presses with new sheetfed presses. So, now the print runs are anywhere between 3,000 to 10,000.”

Those the presses signed are four- and five-colour configured, they aren’t basic machines. “These are high-productivity presses, and when I say high-productivity it means that the presses are fitted with technology which reduces makeready time, wastages, are fast and the per-copy cost is low,” explained Khanna. “The KHS-AI technology eliminates downtime between jobs and speeds on the fly density changes.”

Before signing off, Khanna informed PrintWeek that Komori is on the verge of signing another deal, a GL 640, which will be revealed tomorrow.