The packaging industry for a long time relied on presses and converting equipment imported from Europe, America and Japan. Second hand machinery has given way in the past fifteen years to brand new imports from manufacturers such as Iwasaki, Taiyo, Aquaflex, Gallus, MPS, Mark Andy and Nilpeter for label presses and Rotomec, and Cerruti gravure presses. Brand new die-cutter and folder gluers from Bobst are installed practically every week as the mono-carton and g-flute liner carton industry grows in double digits.
In the last five years there has also been an influx of Chinese manufactured equipment such as laminators and die-cutters and sheet-fed gravure presses. While these were looked at with cynicism at first, they are increasingly establishing themselves as cost-effective solutions within the diverse Indian market.
The Indian manufacturers first took on postpress and finishing equipment for commercial printing such as folders, stitchers, coaters, perfect binders and gang-stitchers, 3-knife trimmers and even case makers. Now the Indian manufacturers are gaining confidence and sales traction in the packaging and label machinery market with an increasing number of repeat orders.
The Indian gravure press manufacturers such as Expert, Kohli and Pelican are able to export their equipment apart from engaging a considerable part of the Indian market. In flexo, the Indian manufacturers have been able to compete in the narrow web market but there is no Indian wide web CI flexo press that we know of, although from time to time we do hear of attempts to manufacture these.
The numerous Indian label press manufacturers include RK Machines, Jandu Engineers, Keen Engineering and Apex Rototeck. There are also Autoprint which manufactured the Alca Gamut and Multitec which first manufactured a sophisticated servo based narrow web flexo label press but met up with tough market conditions and came up with a simpler press called the Ecoflex. The Ecoflex sold a dozen machines last year and Multitec hopes to sell 18 in this year. In the meantime, the Proteck and Nilpeter joint venture in India has built the Nilpeter FB 3300 and recently installed its first machine in North India.
There are a couple of UV coater manufacturers and one of them UV Graphic Technology has been successful not only in selling to leading carton manufacturers in the Indian market but has also exported to Europe and North America. Autoprint has also installed more than 30 of its Finecoat 80 machines since its launch in September 2008. There are also couple of folder gluer manufacturers such as Cartonal and Acme but folder-gluers are difficult to build to the competitive specs required by high value mono-carton converters.
There is no question that Bobst has dominated the autoplaten die-cutter and folder gluer market in India. As far as die-cutters there is really no competition at the top end from any other European or Japanese supplier. Bobst’s wholly owned manufacturing plant in Pune which makes various components for their equipment worldwide has now started to produce folder-gluers for the Indian market.
However, in the past seven to eight years a considerable number of Chinese die-cutters from manufactures such as Yoco and Yawa have proven themselves in the Indian market albeit at slower speeds than Bobst. It was only a matter of time before Indian manufacturers also entered this aspect of converting which requires extremely heavy parts with the utmost in precision and reliability.
Excel Machinery based in Ahmedabad has been in the market with its Maxima autoplaten die-cutter for about five years. It has installed 27 Maxima EXB35 machines at carton converters around the country which it also showed at the Printpack 2009 show in Delhi. The Maxima auto-platen with a maximum sheet size of 635 x 905 cm (25 x 35.63 inches) has several repeat customers including Grand Prints in Gurgaon which has installed three machines. Other customers include Yamir Packaging in Ahmedabad, Security and Offset Printers in Hyderabad. Security Press and Mumbai-based Rich Offset have installed a Maxima in its Baddi plant in North India. One can easily foresee that Excel Machinery as it gains domain knowledge will look to enhance its product line.
At the Printpack 2009 show in January 2009 at Delhi, Coimbatore-based Autoprint showed several new machines including its Diana 450 4-colour offset press and its mid-size Autoprint Repetto 65 flatbed autoplaten die-cutter. This machine has undergone beta testing at sites around the country and has also been installed at several carton converters.
In the packaging area (and this article has not yet covered filling and sealing machines) Indian equipment manufacturers have sensed the opportunity and they are clearly upgrading their technology inputs and coming up with some interesting innovations that we expect will be shown at the Printpack 2011 show in January 2011 at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi.
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