W&H is often admired in India for pioneering the use of flexography printing for flexible packaging in a country that is overwhelmingly committed to gravure. The customers for its high-speed wide CI flexo presses include some of the largest flexible packaging companies and most recently also customers in South India. Alongside the sale of flexo presses, W&H is the best known supplier of sophisticated 3-, 5-, 7-, and 9-layer blown film lines to leading Indian packaging film suppliers and converters.
In the last three years, W&H has made a breakthrough on the rotogravure side in South Asia with the sale of several lines to Pakistan and a pair of gravure presses to Indian customers. The first Heliostar machines delivered to Pakistan were a huge success and known to perform at top speeds. This success was proven further by more investments in high-speed rotogravure presses in the country.
In India, W&H is known for the sales of numerous blown film lines and wide web CI flexo presses. In addition in the past year, two Heliostar rotogravure presses have also been sold to Indian customers. These presses are equipped with a high level of automation that are an integrated part of the press. The lines can be operated from a single W&H control console for achieving full rated production output. W&H believes the first Heliostar installations will create a new landmark in the Indian printing industry.
Success in the cement bag market
W&H has done a lot of pioneering work in woven sacks technologies. They have found tremendous success in the market with their innovative woven sacks technology to manufacture hot air sealed Block Bottom PP woven sacks. The production of highly decorated large PP-based woven sacks for packaging commodities such as cement, sugar and fertilizer has led to a huge uptake, particularly in the Indian cement industry.
The innovative Block Bottom bags offer major advantages to end users, such as better
Photo PSA
stackability due to box type shape on filling, better aesthetics due to good printability, anti-counterfeiting, minimal pilferage and environmental benefit due to minimal spillage of packed material. These bags are produced on the coverTex series of bag making machines. The new converTex CL 140 introduced at the K exhibition in Dusseldorf in 2016 exceeds the speed of all other bottomers for cross bottom bags on the market. At the W&H stand at K 2016, 65 gram bags were produced at the rate of 140 bags per minute in live presentations. The visitor response, especially from several Indian customers, was very positive.
According to Anuj Sahni, general manager sales of W&H in India, all the major divisions of W&H will be represented at PlastIndia in Gandhinagar. Sahni reports that while the last year was exceptional for flexible packaging installations, the current year is expected to be equally productive for bag making and filling and sealing machines for bulk packaging of cement, chemicals, fertilizers, seeds, and food grains.
Sahni reminds us that W&H India has one of the most exceptional engineering resources in India with several highly trained engineers who are not only trained in Germany but are fluent in German language as well as several other languages. This gives the Indian
subsidiary a strong technical and cultural bandwidth of communication with the head office and factory making it fully capable of delivering sound information as well as precision and quality installation, support and maintenance at full speed.
