With a staunch expansion plan, the supportive clientele from Surat’s industrial sector is the key for business for local printers. With a vision to further expand in terms of printing for the thriving garment industry in Surat, Jain Offset Print is rightly hitting the wave of expansion with its recent installation of a Ryobi (RMGT) 920 4-color plus coater offset press for its commercial and packaging operations in a new company called Rajlaxmi Print Tech.
Textile and garment market drives printing
Speaking to Packaging South Asia, Mukesh Jain, one of the three partners of the two family-run companies, says, “Our major clientele is based out of garment and textile industry. We undertake printing jobs for these clients for saree boxes and polyvinylchloride carry bags (PVC), which are popular among their consumers and the demand for these is constantly rising.” The company also supplies boxes and PVC bags to clients based in the nearby states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Jain believes that the PVC carry bags which are printed using an automatic silk screen printing machine have become popular as the product is visible through the transparent material and also offers a reuse option for storage of clothes at home. As far as the new multicolor offset press, it helps to generate smart spot UV effects, which decorate the saree boxes as well as other high-value catalogs.
Expansion with 360-degree approach
Printers in Surat have been dependent on the local textile industry and garment market for years and the legacy continues. Keeping in mind the growing market of the city, Jain Offset Print is set for expansion with the new Ryobi (RMGT) 920 offset press resuming its commercial operations in full swing. Jain, partner at Jain Offset Print and Rajlaxmi Print Tech, states, “Our client base is loyal and based on their suggestions and our plans, we added another unit with 11,000 square feet of space, which is where we have installed the brand new RMGT press. We decided to procure a new machine in 2016 drupa and now that it is installed and running, our clients are happy with the delivery of the jobs we have printed on it.”
Apart from the recently acquired space, which it is developing into an all-inclusive space for a variety of value-addition work, the company’s earlier spaces of around 41,000 square feet contain its earlier presses and allied equipment. “There are several good printers in the city who are known for good printing, but not all the work can be handled by a single printer here in Surat. So, we have developed our setup in such a way that once a client wants to work on a catalog and its product packaging, we play a role right from the photo shoot up to the final binding and delivering the final product. This makes life easier for the companies as they have to maintain fewer accounts. This second unit in our expansion is
known as Rajlaxmi Print Tech.”
Most of the work, approximately 80 to 90%, is local while the other 10% comes from clients based outside the city and the neighboring states. The print work consists mainly of catalogs and boxes for packaging textiles and garments as well as commercial promotional material and, of course, PVC carry bags.
Infrastructure
Apart from the recent upgrade with the installation of the RMGT in the new plant, the company has six offset presses in the older establishment including a Komori 6-color plus coater and a Komori 426 4-color, a Planeta Super Variant and a couple of Heidelberg presses. Prepress includes a Technova T9 CtP and GMG software. Ancilliary equipment for binding, cutting, automatic lamination, punching and the automated screen printing machine are also part of the setup. The company has its own design unit, where the actual fabric or garment portrayed in the catalogs is compared with the press output. A team of 150 people handles all the print projects in both the companies of the group.
