On 18 December 2015, Bobst celebrated its 125th anniversary along with the customer meet at Hotel My Fortune in Bengaluru. Venugopal Menon, president – sales for the business sheetfed unit at Bobst India, welcomed the visitors and gave a presentation en-titled “What drives competitiveness?Low investment or better efficiency?’’
Menon presented the trends and statistics of the folding carton industry and highlighted the litho laminated cartons which are anticipated to grow globally from US$ 87 billion in 2014 to US$ 105billion by 2020. Majority of the growth is expected from food and healthcare other than confectionery and liquor segments. According to the latest Smithers Pira report, the per captia spend on packaging in India is US$ 3.2 dollar per annum as compared to US$ 13 per annum in China, US$ 2.3 per annum in Africa and US$ 50 per annum in Japan.Currently the paperboard production is2.5 million metric tonnes and is expect-ed to grow to 3.4 million metric tonnes by 2020. With 35% share lead by the food and healthcare division the consumption should grow from its current US$3.8 billion to US$ 5.6 billion by 2020.
Addressing the need for automation to remain competitive and cost efficient, Menon said, “When the decision involves high value capital, a buyer al-ways thinks whether he can afford it or if it is a viable option. Price is always a precursor but more than price, the decision has to be weighed in terms of cost per unit of production from a specific equipment and its ROI. With the increase invariable cost in terms of labour, there is a need to move to automation which offers better productivity and faster turn-around of orders.” It was also interesting for the audience to discover that the cost of diecutting per unit from multiple, cheaper hand platens actually turns out to be much more, when compared to an out-put from a highly productive diecutter, which Menon illustrated by the dcf method. The discussion towards the end became very interactive with the audience wanting to know more on howto judge if an investment made sense,given the volume and production costs.
