Manroland Sheetfed sales reflect the maturity of the Indian packaging converters
The steady return of Manroland Sheetfed into the Indian packaging market in the last several years is bearing fruit as the company has considerably lifted its game in the past year. As the pandemic and the lockdowns ended, the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary in India, Manroland Sheetfed India became bolder and went beyond talking to its considerable installed footprint in the Indian monocarton industry.
This has paid off, as the industry returns to structured capacity building with several converters who have held off investments in the past two or three years purchasing highly automated 7-color plus coater automated B1 presses. The Manroland Evolution series are thus recognized by the Indian packaging converters as one of the modern automated options that have to be evaluated when looking at capacity expansion.
Recently, Manroland Sheetfed Evolution 700 presses were purchased by two monocarton companies in the Delhi NCR – Sain Packaging and Galaxy Offset. The presses are similar but not identical. Both are 7-color coater UV presses with full auto-plate loading with interdeck and end-of-press UV cassettes besides the standard IR and hot air dryers. The Sain Packaging press will be installed at its plant north of the city in Sonipat, while Galaxy’s Evolution will come to its new plant built south of Manesar. The two Evolution presses will be shipped in the coming months and installed within the financial year that ends on 31 March 2022.
The return of Manroland Sheetfed to the ranks of global suppliers selling new 7-color coater UV presses with automation into the Indian market marks a welcome and successful renewal of intensity by the third German offset sheetfed press manufacturer. It has been an uphill climb, but the re-establishment of the company with its persistence in supplying spares, service, and technical support services has led to the multiple sales of new and used presses. Its active participation provides significant options for the fast-growing and maturing Indian carton industry.
The Indian and South Asian carton printers and converters are now relatively well versed in the technicalities and details of purchasing a sophisticated automated press. They are more than able to sort through the levels of features, options, and ‘innovations’– looking for high performance and reliability not only from the machines but also from the Indian subsidiaries and distributors of the five global manufacturers.
Engineering service and back office support are a given in this highly technical and competitive market, as are improved inputs and consumables. The carton manufacturers are looking for industrial strength reliability – they have put in place the infrastructure to use these presses to higher specification work and quality at rated speeds for performance, productivity, and return on investment. They are mindful of the benefits of automation to the skilled human resources and the talent in the press room. The presses commissioned in this market in the current financial year are no less sophisticated or automated than those anywhere in the world.
The Covid-19 pandemic led to the country-wide lockdown on 25 March 2020. It will be two years tomorrow as I write this. What have we learned in this time? Maybe the meaning of resilience since small companies like us have had to rely on our resources and the forbearance of our employees as we have struggled to produce our trade platforms.
The print and packaging industries have been fortunate, although the commercial printing industry is still to recover. We have learned more about the digital transformation that affects commercial printing and packaging. Ultimately digital will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future.
Web analytics show that we now have readership in North America and Europe amongst the 90 countries where our five platforms reach. Our traffic which more than doubled in 2020, has at times gone up by another 50% in 2021. And advertising which had fallen to pieces in 2020 and 2021, has started its return since January 2022.
As the economy approaches real growth with unevenness and shortages a given, we are looking forward to the PrintPack India exhibition in Greater Noida. We are again appointed to produce the Show Daily on all five days of the show from 26 to 30 May 2022.
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