On our recent visit to Manesar, apart from discussing Galaxy Offset’s purchase of a new Manroland Sheetfed Evolution 7-color plus coater UV press, we learned that the fast-growing company is building a new purpose-built plant in Ghilot. The first phase of construction on the seven-acre plot, which is 70 kilometers south of Manesar, is a 150,000-square-foot building that will initially house three packaging lines, starting with the installation of the new highly automated Evolution full UV press.
This line will be completed with one of the existing die-cutters and folder-gluers at Manesar, after which the two existing packaging presses and the remaining die-cutters and folder-gluers will be moved there along with the corrugating plant that is in other nearby premises. The two connected buildings in Manesar will then be dedicated to the commercial printing business, which the company plans to develop further.
We asked the obvious question to both Vikas and Amit Gulati on our visit. Why did they decide to purchase the Manroland Sheetfed Evolution when Galaxy Offset was such a committed Heidelberg user for monocartons – right from prepress software, CtP, multicolor UV presses, to die-cutters? (It even used Sapphire consumables)! The answer they gave is that they visited the country’s first Evolution multicolor press user, Jash Packaging in Baroda, which installed its Manroland Evolution 8-color plus coater UV press in 2018. And the Gulati brothers were impressed by the reproduction and ink transfer quality of the press on packaging boards.
The visit was not to any demonstration center or exhibition, but to a local user with an everyday pressman and the output, especially the inking efficiency and lack of any kind of ghosting or color bias while printing multiple cartons on the same sheet containing the usual spot color solids was convincing. As was the ease of achieving color approval. Galaxy Offset bought the Evolution 700 7-color plus coater with interdeck and end-of-press UV curing and the standard IR dryer. The new press will arrive at the beginning of 2023 and with its enhanced dampening system and the new upgraded version of the Evolution feeder, will be installed before the end of the financial year.
In the past, we have written that middle-level organized carton converters need to be careful in their investments. In our repeated questioning of this sensitive subject, the Gulati brothers are quite transparent and realistic about their growth expectations. Amit Gulati explained to us, “We continue to grow and we have to invest in a new and much larger plant and we need another and more advanced 7-color plus coater press to establish it as a dedicated packaging unit. Although we may now be counted as one of the larger middle-level organized converters in the country, our edge is our responsiveness – everyone from the top to the bottom of the company is accessible to the customer’s teams. We continue to serve the upcoming brands that we help to grow. And we can proudly say that our relationships with our brands have strengthened as we have contributed to their growth in turnover and even to national prominence.”
Galaxy Offset has always been a fast-growing company and the two buildings were full when we visited more than four years ago. For them to build a large new plant and to initiate it with a new UV press is well within their prudent calculations. Vikas and Amit rely on their brother Aman Gulati’s financial acumen and expertise in safeguarding the economics of the operations and in the timely procurement of raw materials, especially at a time when the economy is recovering and the demand for monocartons is high.
