Packaging South Asia

ABB today announced the acquisition of B&R, the largest independent provider focused on product- and software-based, open-architecture solutions for machine and factory automation worldwide. B&R, founded in 1979 by Erwin Bernecker and Josef Rainer, is headquartered in Eggelsberg, Austria, and employs more than 3,000 people, including about 1,000 R&D and application engineers. It operates across 70 countries, generating sales of more than US$ 600 million (2015/16) in the US$ 20 billion machine and factory automation market segment.

In contemporary times digital printing is the name of the game given its ability to offer ultimate solutions for flexible packaging, labels and decorative printing segments. The converting industry for long has been grappling with restricted availability of the right type of substrate supporting direct digital printing without prior priming and coating or surface treatment for that matter.

Avon Pacfo Services, a startup in the packaging and shipping materials segment, offers products and services to customers with big and small orders alike. Unlike most startups that go through a process of uphill task during the initial years, Avon Pacfo began on a strong note with adequate investment and infrastructure. The new venture is a division of Faridabad-based Avon Containers, a leading converter of corrugated shipping and packaging material, founded by Gaurav Agarwal, managing director of Avon Containers and  Himanshu Bhansali, former general manager at Umex Packaging.

Visitors to the Xeikon Café, taking place at Xeikon Headquarter in Lier, Belgium, were witness to a first look at Xeikons’ first UV inkjet press, the new Panther PX3000, designed for self-adhesive labels for specific applications such as health and beauty, household chemicals, industrial chemicals and industrial labels. Filip Weymans, marketing manager at Xeikon said, “The digital frontend, X-800, of the new press is what will separate it from the competition. It doesn’t matter if a faster press is available in the market because the Panther can beat it with the frontend capabilities if not with its own speed.”

Sonepat-based A&S Labels is a leading manufacturer and exporter of metallized, filmic, barcode, adhesive and non-adhesive labels. The company is a prime label supplier to pharma, FMCG, cosmetic, durables and liquor companies. A&S is also a leading producer and supplier of holographic strips. In the past year, A&S enhanced its capacity considerably with the installation of a Mark Andy Performance Series P5 narrow web flexo press at its 20,000 square foot plant in Rai. To go with the new press, a Rotoflex VSI330 slitter rewinder and inspection system featuring a Nikka 100% inspection system was also installed.

Koji Suzuki, the manager of overseas sales for Konica Minolta's production and industrial print for the region, spoke at Gulf Print & Pack about the new Accurio branding of the company's digital printing products and solutions. There are four types of Accurio solutions ranging from the Konica Minolta digital production press, such as the C2060L and C2070 presses, that are known as Accurio Print to the Accurio Jet consisting right now of the KM1 inkjet press. Accurio Pro solutions include workflows and the company's color management that links up the already inbuilt measuring capability of its machines to the cloud.

Naph Graphics demonstrated three products at PrintPack India 2017—the Koncept web offset tower, which was launched eight years ago; the Slitline slitter rewinder with speeds up to 350 m/min with web width up to 1300 mm; and an online stacker.

At this year’s PrintPack event, Ahmedabad-based Excel Machinery launched its latest automatic diecutter machine, Maxima HS 1020. We at Indian Printer and Publisher met Jitendra Patel, managing director of Excel Machinery, to talk about the new machine and get a comprehensive overview of the company and its business.

Participating for the first time in PrintPack India, UK-based Arden Software will showcase the workflow and design tools during the five-day trade show. The company has, in just one year, successfully managed to install around 15 licenses in India. Speaking about the organization, Manish Bhaskar, director and business head – Asia, Arden Asia Pacific Software says, “Arden software is a 29-year-old company, and recently we set a base in Delhi. The company develops integrated solutions that help the converter to have control over manufacturing process right from the design to final dispatch. Arden Software is a global supplier of solutions, and besides India, we have over 11,000 installations across the US- and UK-based convertors.” 

At PrintPack 2017, Indore-based Param ERP will be present at Hall 3, Stand B-6. Param ERP closed a few big deals in the last quarter, selling as many as 12 ERP software packages. Although the number of installations they did was less as compared to 2015 at 20 installations, according to Vinod Nawab, director of Param, the installations in 2016 had significantly higher value in terms of the size of projects as well as the diversity of applications.