Navi Mumbai headquartered Laxmi Pharma Pack is part of the larger Laxmi Group of companies, which is headed by Mahesh Chamaria and his son Anuj Chamaria. Laxmi Pharma Pack specializes in printing and converting cartons and sticker labels for the pharmaceutical industry. The company was founded about three years ago; before its inception, the cartons and sticker label solutions were provided by Anuj Printart, which is no longer in operation.
Laxmi Pharma Pack has its plant in Vapi, Gujarat. The Vapi facility is about 17 acres in area with the manufacturing plant spread over two acres. This new unit meets all international standards and boasts of start-of-the-art technology. “A lot of emphasis has been laid on the environment with measures taken to conserve water and energy,” says Anuj Chamaria, who heads Laxmi Pharma Pack.
The Vapi plant has four Heidelberg presses for cartons and two Mark Andy presses for labels. Catering to renowned pharmaceutical companies like Ranbaxy, Glenmark, Cipla, Apotex, Aristo, US Vitamins, Indoco, etc., the plant has a capacity to produce about 30-40 lakh cartons and 25 lakh sticker labels per day.
Higher productivity, better quality
As more and more customers demand complete error-free jobs, Laxmi Pharma Pack is moving towards installing more automatic defect detection systems. Little over three years ago it bought a Rotoflex VSI inspection machine from Flexo Image Graphics and two years ago a Bobst Accucheck was installed. Currently, there are two inspection systems for cartons and one for labels, with a plan to add more in the near future.
“There has been a marked improvement in our efficiencies due to the inspections systems and we are keen to add more such inspections systems. It is the need of the hour,” Chamaria argues.
Apart from inspection systems, Laxmi Pharma Pack is also looking to add a digital cutting table to make mock-up and samples and scanning software. “These investments would help us in reducing the time spent on jobs and enhance productivity,” he adds.
New product line
While Anuj Printart was focusing primarily on mono cartons and sticker labels, Laxmi Pharma Pack is offering a much-diversified portfolio of solutions. In addition to regular mono cartons, Laxmi Pharma Pack is also doing FMCG cartons and metallized cartons.
“Now we have also ventured into making PP or PET cartons. This is part of our effort to offer more value-added products. Currently, not many convertors are offering PET cartons,” Chamaria says.
The idea is to move away from low margin commoditized products to more premium and value-added products.
Focus on exports
At the moment, Laxmi Pharma Pack does not directly cater to overseas customers. However, it is now aggressively looking to venture beyond the Indian market. This will help the company diversify into new markets as its current focus is on Southeast Asian and African markets.
“We are now looking aggressively at exports and the Vapi unit will cater to a lot of foreign players,” points out Chamaria, who has been regularly travelling to Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia and Vietnam.
