“We want to become the supplier of consumables to our customers where they don’t need to order anymore; where the materials are always there for customers with whom we have frame contracts. We can streamline some of these procurement and supply costs by having suppliers work with us. — Rainer Hundsdorfer speaking to Indian Printer & Publisher and Packaging South Asia at the Heidelberg Packaging Days in Wiesloch on 8 November 2017.
Manish Jain of Manohar Filaments a packaging company in the Delhi NCR that specializes in mono and litho-laminated cartons and labels tags in the branded textile, garment and export domains, says, “Basically, the Heidelberg consumables are a good deal.” A longtime Heidelberg multicolor press user, the company is comfortable with the reduction of several variables that can come from sourcing chemicals and blankets on its own. He is happy to entrust the Heidelberg India team with the task of monitoring the consumable inputs and the inventory and also ordering and replacing them for his pressroom.
Inks, coatings, rollers, blankets, press supplies, maintenance products and press room chemicals for sheetfed and web-offset presses are sold under the Saphira umbrella by Heidelberg India. “Our branded consumables undergo vigorous and rigorous testing in our research labs to be optimized for not just Heidelberg equipment but any machine in the market, to make it as good as or even better than any competing product. An appropriate certification is issued before the product is released to the market,” says Robert Joseph, business head – Consumables of Heidelberg India.
Janus Packaging in Baddi is another company that has signed up for Saphira consumables. Munish Aggarwal relates that all products are first looked examined for the likelihood of cost-effectiveness and only then trials are performed in the press room. In case the price is higher then a payback in terms of number of impressions, runnability or longevity or provable quality benefit is considered. So far Janus has started using Saphira blankets where it has found a major quality benefit at a reasonable price. In the next phase it is testing and evaluating pressroom chemicals. Aggarwal says, “We do trials only after looking at the price and essentially Heidelberg gives us a good deal with some extra benefits on achieving various levels of consumable use.”
Robert says in conclusion, “Saphira has evolved into a full-fledged application now. It is not just a product line anymore. Heidelberg provides value-added professional support for the Saphira application through site visits and continuous follow-up. Heidelberg factory-trained application specialists assess the situation on the press before suggesting a suitable range of consumables that can be applied to that equipment . . . . As part of the application support, Heidelberg also provides training to pressroom operators at client sites.”
