Alan Barretto, MD, Nilpeter India
On Friday 19 June PSA met with Alan Barretto, MD of Nilpeter, India. He spoke to us about the progress of the manufacturing joint venture with Proteck to manufacture label presses in India. The FB-3300 Servo machine is ready and we have done our print trials. Unfortunately we got held up because we have no one to try out the machine. Three of us are going to Nilpeter next week for training. The registration is good and the tension folding is good. Now we need to know more about trouble shooting.
We have changed a few things on the machine. We had intended to make the machine identical to the American machine however we have made a few adaptations to adjust to the Indian environment. The American machine is designed to work on the American voltage of 110 volts, so it has a few redundancies. It goes from 110 to 220 volts and then back to 110 volts. So we have eliminated that and gone straight to 220 volts. So we have eliminated a couple of transformers on the machine and simplified the electricals.
The technology is really in the print station area in the cylinders, we got a lot of that from the drawings. In terms of the bought out items we are buying from the same people that Nilpeter buys from. Like the servos are all from Rexroth. Like Rexroth is in India and we buy with the exact same specifications it all comes from Germany whether you buy it from America or in India. They have a factory for a little value addition and for service. Support and spares. For example we had a problem a few days earlier and they came here and spent a few days with us and troubleshot the whole thing. Rexroth is the preferred supplier worldwide for Nilpeter. We have a global contract with them good deal and support. Our next big component sourced from outside is the UV system is from GEW it is also a Nilpeter standard. The tension control system is the bought directly from the same supplier that Nilpeter uses. A company called Global Flexotronics from the US.
These are few of the things that we find are critical for the machine functioning so we are not taking any chances with them they will be exactly as per the Nilpeter standards. We manufacture all the side frames, the rollers and the idlers. The bends are all from the local SKF. The induction motors for the in feed and the unwind and the rewind are locally sourced.
There are a few pneumatics but the compressor and air line supplied from the customer side. There is not much compressed air, active pneumatics, there is only switching it on and off unless they are using a web turn bar. In which case there is always air blowing. Then you need a high consumption of air.
On the marketing side, we have got a few very good enquiries but everyone is waiting to see the machine. We are planning that by the middle of July we will be able to show the machine to select few customers who we got the enquiries from then we will conduct an open house.
