Windmöller & Hölscher’s (W&H) big team at the recently concluded PlastIndia exhibition in New Delhi was present to explain both its products under development and those that are ready for sale. “We have the best laboratory in the world for our segment. The value and importance of the exhibition for us as W&H shows in our presence here with a big team. India has been very important for us, and we have been the market leader in our segment in this country,” said Shri Prakash Werlemann-Gupta, the managing director for sales and service – Middle East, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent for W&H, managing director of the Indian operations as well as the W&H global service head worldwide.
The highlights at the W&H stand were the quality and technical discussions with the customers. The company is in the process of completing several installations. These are positive signals in the market and a good motivation for the team. “I was there in the CEO meet at the event and I would say the mood of the industry is still positive towards India,” Werlemann-Gupta told Packaging South Asia. He went on to say, “India has been very important for us for the last 40 years. We have approximately 160 people in India and this will grow to 280 by the end of this year.
“The service base, which I started approximately 30 years ago, is growing like anything providing many services for the group. We are trying to do a lot of software programming but most of the time it is the service technicians who are traveling worldwide, speaking to all the Germans, and very well connected to the base in Germany.
“This operation will increase our customers. Our bosses have seen and observed that all the customers were just saying you actually don’t need Germans. The sales support, the service support, the project management support – the way it is going on, they are extremely happy.
“None of the customers has complained that they have a problem and that happens very rarely in the world. I am proud to be an Indian, to be in India, and responsible for India. It is one of the reasons why we are the market leaders here. We have a friendly culture, with no hierarchical thinking. We have 60-70 people who have just joined in the last few weeks and months – the average age is 29 and the average experience in the company is five years. I am proud to have a team that is phenomenal and unique in the industry.”
Growth of plastic packaging
According to Werlemann-Gupta, the plastics packaging industry is growing and it has a tremendous role in terms of saving food with high-barrier quality films and lately with MDO technology. Monomaterial films with MDO technology have very high recyclability and W&H as pioneers are very successful worldwide in this, he says.
“There are two issues in plastics – one is saving food for poor people and the other is marine littering. Either you say no to plastic for marine littering or save food for poor people. We need to find a solution for marine littering. India has tremendous potential in both areas, having good quality, high-quality machines which we can support. There is a growth for plastic and good quality, flexible packaging in the future,” he says.
On sustainability, he says, “Don’t talk, do it – have machines that allow you to save food, which allows possibilities to recycle material, and be environment friendly. Not only machines but also go into your own company, have a better carbon footprint. We are going ahead with sustainability reports in conformity with European law. We are thinking about not only our machines, but we are also talking to customers and helping them to be in a sustainable environment to make it a better world.”
14 installations in 2023
Anuj Sahni, sales director – Indian subcontinent said, “There are around W&H 14 installations that are coming in 2023 – for extrusion lines, both blown film as well as cast film lines. There are a lot of service assignments, that we have to perform in India this year.
“The installations are fairly distributed within India – there are a couple in Western India and North India. The concentration of the machines is no longer only – it has dispersed to other geographies within India. In the North, we have a huge machine population, and we have our footprint in the south and even in the east.”
Werlemann-Gupta added, “There have been 80-90 blown film lines in the last few years and our competitors have hardly sold anything. It’s all our market.”
PlastIndia 2023 has been phenomenal, he said. “It happened after five years since the last one in 2018. The organization has been tremendously good. It was a good decision to come back from Gandhinagar to Delhi. A bit chaotic in the beginning, but the storm of visitors increased tremendously. No free passes were given and you could feel that the quality of the visitors and discussions improved tremendously. The whole team was very busy,” concluded Werlemann-Gupta.
