Printwell International installs a GUK commercial folder

As a part of the expansion plan, Printwell International has also roped in a brand-new Ryobi four-colour sheetfed offset press.

Pradeep Shinde, director, Printwell International, said, “Having the state-of-the-art post-press equipment to match our new printing machine is a must, otherwise, exploiting the full potential of its printing capabilities becomes difficult.”

Shinde added, “We looked at various options, including Welbound's Diploma folder, which could have done the job. But, we always wanted to own a brand-new German folding machine and the GUK K74/6 KTL is already proving that our decision was right. GUK is suitable for the high-end pharmaceutical inserts and outserts. Besides the inserts and outserts, the regular commercial folds are also a class apart. More importantly, it's difficult to source a pre-owned one.”

The GUK K 74/6 KTL machine has a flat pile feeder, transport table, folding station with six buckles, a cross knife and a parallel knife. The machine has a speed of 180mts per minute and folds out various formats with incredible level of accuracy. GUK is known for their high engineering standards that produce highly specialised folding rollers that are responsible for the accuracy levels. For the pharmaceutical market, GUK produces machines that folds a newspaper size sheet to one that fits the small cap of a bottle.

K C Sanjeev, managing director of Welbound Worldwide, said, “GUK and Welbound have a strong relationship since 2004. We have been their sales and service partners for both commercial and miniature folding machines. We are exploring possibilities of enhancing this relationship to look at assembly of commercial folders in India. The machine supplied to Printwell has the complete electricals including the servo drives for knives which are designed and assembled by our team in India.”

World over, faster and newer folding machines have replaced older ones on a scale of one new machine for two old ones. This is probably the reason a lot of used folding machines find their way to India. It is important that the print houses realise that to do the jobs faster, accurately, within the minimum footprint with optimum utilisation of manpower, it is very important to remain profitable. The cost of maintaining and using a pre-owned equipment are much higher than the new ones, and this is more so in the case of post-press equipment.