There are approximately 30 Indian exhibitors at drupa 2016 and together with their staff and printer visitors and trade media they will possibly comprise anywhere from 3,000 to 3,500 Indians at Dusseldorf. At Rs. 150,000 per visitor this comes to an expenditure of approximately Rs. 525 million or Rs. 52.5 crore. One can assume the Indian exhibitors will spend an additional Rs. 100 million or Rs. 10 crore. Thus the Indian print, publishing and packaging industry is spending about Rs 62.5 crore (or about US$ 10 million) for this quadrennial exercise in keeping up with technology and global networking. Both are essential and we need to only keep in mind that we need to individually and collectively bring something back from drupa – in terms of ideas, knowledge, innovation and technology to justify this cash outgo from the industry. This cash outgo is a prelude to further expenditure in terms of acquiring the appropriate technologies that we discover at drupa.
What’s hot at drupa?
You have heard it before: packaging will be centre-stage; sustainability; automation and industry 4.0; Print 4.0; machines will talk to each other; machines will talk to the cloud. 3D printing. And lastly digital printing. Digital print will not take the place of offset at this drupa. Digital inkjet is coming in a big way with at least three or four B1 (40-inch wide) inkjet presses at the show but they will all be talking future, future, future. The talk will be of 2017, 2017-end, 2018 and there will be many riders in terms of speed and capital and consumables cost. So inkjet digital will again threaten but it will fail to click in our market which is happy with the cost of offset printing at 40-inch widths at a speed of 10,000 to 18,000 sheets an hour; or the cost of wide web gravure and flexo printing of laminates at speeds from 150 to 450 metres a minute.
G7 Expert training Skill in India to print with excellence in India 20 to 23 September 2016 in Mumbai Idealliance India will hold the G7 Professional and Expert four-day training and certification programme in Mumbai from 20 to 23 September 2016. The trainer will be Steve Smiley, the G7 expert and active member of the ISO TC 130 committee for graphic arts standards development. While certification is only open to Idealliance India members non-members can also take part in the training.
First IppStar-PackTechIndia Conference in Mumbai 16 to 17 December 2016
The IppStar-PackTech India Packaging Design, Innovation and Technology Conference will be held on 16 and 17 December 2016 at the Bombay Exhibition Centre. Messe Düsseldorf India and IppStar will jointly organize the conference alongside the biannual International PackTech India / Food-Pex India at the Bombay Exhibition Centre in Mumbai. While the PackTech India / FoodPex India will take place from 15 to 17 December 2016 the first annual IppStar-Pack-Tech India Packaging Design, Innovation and Technology Conference will take place at the conference hall at the same site on 16 and 17 December.
Packaging South Asia is the cooperating media partner for drupa 2016 which is scheduled to be held from 31 May to 10 June at Dusseldorf, Germany.
