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The Idealliance India G7 Expert and Professional Training and Certification Program, conducted by Steve Smiley in Mumbai, was a significant milestone for skills training in our somewhat fragmented industry. The program, initially designed for 25 candidates, saw 27 participants and ended with a huge amount of cheers and smiles. We couldn’t have asked for more but, most importantly, for us as well as for our stakeholders, the larger objective of our endeavour—to create G7 certified color technologists in India—was met. The program included engineers and application specialists for wide web flexo, gravure and offset. We had prepress technicians from gravure, flexo and offset; press engineers and operators; and color management practitioners and consultants from South, West and North India as well as from Singapore and the Middle East.

In a world premier, Gallus showcased a pre-series model of its latest generation of machines at the Gallus Innovation Days, scheduled from 20–22 September 2016 at the company headquarters in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Seven years after the market launch of the Gallus ECS 340, by far the best-selling and one of the most successful conventional label printing systems in its class for Gallus, the company is set to launch a new machine with a wider web width of 440 mm.

Hyderabad-based Pravesha Industries has bought India’s 100th 10-color Gallus ECS 340 narrow web flexo press. The purchase was celebrated at the Heidelberg-Gallus function in Mumbai in March. The fully loaded 10-color narrow web press Gallus ECS 340 was installed in July 2016. “We already have two intermittent letterpress presses for labels. To meet our increasing demands for labels, this time we wanted to add a flexo press and we bought the Gallus,” says B Sivaprasad Reddy, chairman, Pravesha. “Also, we wanted to cater to the non-pharma segment, apart from only serving the pharma industry. For that we wanted to have a fully loaded base machine where we can perform various sorts of challenging value-added label jobs in the future. The investment is inline with the group policy of backward integration for the group’s main company Aurobindo Pharma.” At present, 80% of Pravesha’s printing and converting is for Aurobindo Pharma while the remaining 20% is for outside customers like Mylan, Hetero and Dr. Reddy’s, which again are pharma companies.

Mumbai-based cartons solutions provider Okay Papers Products has been meeting the demands of a  variety of industries—healthcare, pharmaceuticals, agro-chemicals and FMCG. It operates from its Vasai plant, which has state-of-the-art infrastructure. To complement its press department, which is equipped with offset presses from Heidelberg, it has been investing in Bobst technologies in the recent past. In 2013, the company bought Ambition 76 A1 folder-gluer and last year it invested in Novacut 106 diecutter. In the postpress department, apart from the Novacut, it has also two retrofitted Heidelberg cylinder diecutters and two Platen die punching machines.

Founded in 1947, Pune-based K Joshi & Company has opted for major changes in pre and postpress in an endeavour to automate their existing operations. Speaking to Packaging South Asia, Anil Joshi, owner of  K Joshi & Company says, “Presently, the market demands quality jobs within a limited time frame. To meet these requirements, automation is the best option. We are involved in producing cartons, sheetfed labels and commercial printing jobs. At a time when the competition is stiff, it is difficult to expect loyalty from customers. We have to look at ways to retain our customers.”

Some people say that drupa 2016 would mark the end of the big numbers, but deducing trends from statistics can be treacherous. For the past five drupas, the total number of exhibitors has remained relatively stable, oscillating between, grosso modo, 1,850 and 1,950, albeit on less and less exhibition space, wheres visitor delegations have been shrinking continuously during this period. With a total of 1,837 exhibitors and 260,000 visitors, drupa 2016 has been attended by 54,000 less visitors than drupa 2012, but in 2012 the decline was more than 75,000 as compared to 2008, after a period of relative stability and drupa 2000’s peak performance. Most of the decline is attributed to participants from Germany and its direct neighbours, as a result of industry consolidation, but also showing that companies are becoming more selective and are sending less staff to visit the show. A trend which, if we are to believe the drupa organizers, is keeping up or even increasing the percentage of decision-makers and thus overall participation quality.

“Value-addition, innovation and quality are the three pillars on which our company stands. We always try to add a little bit of innovation to our products. Recently we have developed products with natural feel effect, special textured effect, fresnel lens, holographic effects and others which we are showcasing at our stand. We can see a great amount of interest and appreciation for these products among the visitors to our stand at PackPlus,” says Kuldip Goel, managing director of Any Graphics. At PackPlus 2016, Any Graphics was displaying its range of products with innovative features and effects.