All About Newspapers

Print Pack India 09:
confluence of web press technologies too!
Web press manufacturers take advantage to
promote new advancements in their line of products

For web offset machinery manufacturers, Print Pack India 09 - organised by India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), the nodal agency of the government of India for promoting the country’s domestic and external trade, in collaboration with IPAMA, in hall 2-12 (covering over 15,000 sq m net area), Pragati Maidan, New Delhi from January 18-23 - again proved as a constructive and effective platform to promote the new advancements in their line of products. As per the expectations, the ninth Print Pack India show successfully concluded with stimulant response, attracting over 350 exhibitors and over thirty two thousand visitors from India as well as overseas, and auspicating the strength of Indian market during the prevailing global economic meltdown.

At the event, not only almost all major web press manufacturers from India, including HM Web House, J Mahabeer & Co, K K Printing Machines, Manugraph India, Naph Graphics, NBG Printographics Machinery, Perfect Rotary Offset, Prakash Mechanical Works, Pressline India, The Printers House and UDS Offsets Pvt Ltd were promoting their cutting-edge technologies, but also consumable suppliers, including Bromide Color Chemicals, J N Arora Group, Technova Imaging Systems, etc were showcasing several state-of-the-art products. The varieties of inks could be seen at the stands of DIC India, Dolphin Inks, Contact Ink & Coating, Ganpati Imperial India, Micro Inks / hubergroup, Flint Inks, and New Age (India). From overseas, newspaper technology mavens such as 2B-Praezisionstechnik, Rima System, ECRM, MGE, etc took the advantage of the show in promoting their products. Megtec Systems India, Muller Martini (India), QuadTech India Pvt Ltd, Shree Refrigerations and Technicon India were also present to exhibit their excellence.

Albeit, the economic slowdown affected the number of visitors, but all exhibitors were aware of the fact, and accordingly their expectations were. So, most of the exhibitors were reasonably happy and satisfied with the response. Here’s brief about some of the exhibitors from this segment:

Baldwin India Pvt Ltd, a leading supplier of process automation equipment for the printing and publishing industries, was promoting their broad range of market-leading technologies, products and systems that enhance the quality of printed products and improve the economic and environmental efficiency of printing presses. The company’s technology and products include: cleaning systems, dampening systems, ink management systems, web press protection systems and drying systems, etc.

Capital Graphic Supplies, with A S Print Aids, was promoting Buhrs’ wrapping and inserting systems and AFFFELDT’s mailing & wrapping systems.

ECRM: With their Indian distributor Kohli Graphic Systems, ECRM demonstrated their MAKO NEWS, a violet CtP platesetter for small and medium-sized newspapers.

For ECRM, violet CtP has been in great demand in India and continues to grow. So, at this year’s Print Pack India show, we exhibited MAKO NEWS in the booth of our agent in India, Kohli Graphic Systems,” conveyed Jim Luttrell, director of marketing, ECRM.

The US-based ECRM Imaging Systems, one of the global leaders in imaging technologies for the graphic communications industry, has sold and supported more than 5,000 computer-to-plate devices and over 27,000 imagesetters in 110 countries around the world. In India, the company is represented by New Delhi-based Kohli Graphic Systems (KGS), an all India sale & service organization.

Hm Web House Pvt Ltd, an ISO 9001 - 2000 certified company, displayed Impacta-VX36. “Quality being the main thrust on which all our strategies are based, we manufacture machines under stringent quality control in order to ensure reliability and trouble free performance. We are the specialist for manufacturing of state-of-the-art back to back 4-colour printing units in different cut off sizes which are running successfully at various places in the country and abroad as well. At this show, visitors showed quite interest in Impacta machine,” conveyed Nizam Ahmed who is at helm of the company.

J Mahabeer & Company Pvt Ltd, globally known as Grafitek International, was promoting their state-of-the-art Gemini 45000 and Fast 360 web offset presses.

Gemini 45000—a high quality heavy-duty press for printing newspaper and commercial publications with a production speed up to 45,000 copies per hour—is built in modular construction and can be easily configured to cater a variety of pagination and folding possibilities. The individual printing units can be configured as mono, 2-Hi, 3-Hi or 4-Hi towers. Designed ergonomically, the printing units are built with a unique ‘side window’ concept which allows minimum distance between the ends of the cylinder and the side walls, permitting more rigid construction of the cylinders thereby ensuring better dynamic stability of the press.

With advanced technology based on reliability and engineering excellence, FAST 360 is an economical and environment friendly press offering high printing speed (up to 36,000 cph). For perfect registration, anti-fan-out bustle wheels between the first and second impression ensure that the second image is placed directly atop the first identical anti-fan bustle wheels.

“Offering cost effective solutions to printers globally, Grafitek presses are constantly establishing new standards in print quality, productivity, efficiency and reliability. We deem the Print Pack India show the best platform in the country to promote our cutting-edge newspaper technologies. We are happy with response from the event,” commented Pankaj Jha, manager export, Grafitek International.

K K Printing Machines Manufacturing Co Pvt Ltd, an ISO 9001:2000 certified company, demonstrated Ronald web offset press, with heavy duty folder which can take up to 8 paper webs at ease and achieves a speed of 40,000 copies per hour.

“The heavy duty folder offers facility to add on automatic inserter and/or quarter folder, double parallel folder. In it, two S design cylinders, one partially top of the other provide better percentage of transfer than other machines. We are taking advantage of Print Pack India show to promote Ronald web offset 36,000, with extended features,” stated Siddhartha Gupta, vice president—marketing, K K Printing Machines Manufacturing.

Founded in 1983 and being operational in manufacturing web-offset machine under the Ronald brand in 1988, the company is today well known for their high quality and durable web-offset presses. Apart from 400 machines successfully installed in India, they have also installed around 100 Ronald web-offset presses in overseas countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Greece, UAE, Iran, Afghanistan, Haiti and Bangladesh.

Manugraph used Print Pack India 09 show as the launch pad for three products: Smartline, Hiline Express, and UV installed Cityline Express.

Smartline, a 4x1 machine with a max speed of 70,000 cph, is the first double width machine from India. The 4x1 technology is now becoming increasingly popular as it has a number of advantages. With 4x1 technology, for every impression a 4-Hi tower produces 8 pages all colour. Precious space is saved, compared to equivalent capacity 2 x 1 presslines. There are also savings on plate costs. The plate and blanket cylinders of Smartline are mounted on precision 3-race bearings to ensure vibration free running at high speeds. The plate cylinder is of single circumference, while the blanket cylinder is of double circumference. This ensures good stability at high speeds.

Hiline Express is a technical extension of the immensely popular Hiline, featuring three forme rollers as well as three oscillators (with water cooling option) and spray bar dampening. With three forme rollers, the ink lay on the plate is precise and dot reproduction perfect. This enables excellent picture reproduction and takes semi-commercial printing quality to new heights while maintaining the max. speed at 45,000 cph.

UV on Cityline: UV technology also is now becoming very popular. This is because one UV system costs a third of the conventional hot air heatset system and occupies very little space unlike heatset. UV print quality now equals that of hot air heatset. There are many other advantages also, particularly environmental issues. Exhaust is far cleaner and unlike Heatset, no governmental clearance is required from toxicity angle. Energy cost also is less. And UV is the only solution for retrofitting dryers on an existing pressline. In this show, the company was exhibiting Cityline Express (35,000 cph) with UV installation. UV can be fitted on any Manugraph press, for that matter.

“During the show, 477 serious visitors came to our stand among them 469 from domestic market while eight visitors were from overseas countries,” conveyed an official spokesperson from Manugraph India Limited. Commenting on the specific trends observed amongst these visitors, it was stated, “Most visitors came to know latest developments in the printing industry and were quite impressed to see the print quality of our exhibit, Cityline Express machine with UV curing system. However, considering the present scenario of economic slow down, almost none of them had immediate plans for purchase/expansion.”

For MGE—active in the Indian market supplying Chilling equipment—Print Pack India 09 was especially important as it was used as a launch pad for their new Indian Joint venture company, MGE Graphic Systems India Private Ltd, formed to manufacture and supply MGE’s Pressmate range of equipment to give Indian offset printers quality solutions for the total control of their fount solution during the printing process. On the stand they were promoting the new range of chillers for web presses giving solutions from 3kW-20kW. On the sheet fed side, they were displaying 1kW Dampening chiller with alcohol control. Other equipment on display included their MX2 automatic fount doser as well as specialist FX-1 Fount filtration system (and incidentally, sold within the first two hours of the show opening). “Overall, the response of the new venture and equipment at the show was fantastic both with end user printers and also the OEM’s,” according to Simon Martin and Satish Chandna, directors of MGE Graphic Systems India Private Ltd.

Perfect Rotary Offset Pvt Ltd showcased their Webking four colour printing tower with folder (shaftless), offering speed of up to 35,000cph. The company’s Webking 4-colour perfecting printing machinery comes with a common impression cylinder (CIC) and twenty cylinder-configured design where the colour registration does not change during the entire roll unwind period.

Prakash Offset Machinery Pvt Ltd, another leading manufacturer of web offset presses in various cut off sizes, demonstrated Speedster 36,000 web offset machine. Faridabad-based ISO 9001 certified company has established an ultra modern hi-tech manufacturing plant and all of their presses are built entirely in their in-house state-of-the-art production facilities. “While demonstrating our cutting-edge technologies at the show we received quite well response,” stated Naveen Gupta, director, Prakash Offset Machine Pvt Ltd.

Pressline India Pvt Ltd marked its presence displaying the new Prizer web offset machine, equipped with a shaftless 4-high tower and folder. This press having rated speed of 40,000cph did catch the eyes of publishers of daily newspapers and periodicals because of its unmatched finish and technicalities.

During the show another attraction was the first spray dampening system developed in India by Memory-Pressline combined efforts with European technology. The spray dampening system was duly tried and tested at one of the Amar Ujala production centre and the difference of the output between the spray system and the brush dampening system spoke of itself as it could easily be gauged with the naked eye. The system produced in India would be of great value to the web offset users/publishers having the objective of high quality crispy printing with least wastage of newsprint and much better mileage of the ink resulting into huge savings.

Pressline is an ISO 9001: 2000 and CE certified company engaged in the manufacturing and exporting of web offset printing machines having speeds of 20,000, 30,000, 36,000 and 40,000 cph. Apart from large base of installations in India, the company’s presence can be felt in Albania Argentina, Brazil, USA, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Romania etc.

QuadTech, one of the worldwide leaders in the design and manufacturing of control systems for newspapers, was promoting their comprehensive range of solutions including colour control system with AccuCam, register guidance system with MultiCam, etc.

India’s leading single width and single circumference web offset press manufacturers, The Printers House (P) Ltd was promoting their Orient brand presses while exhibiting Orient X-Press-50 (50000 cph).

Faridabad-based UDS Offsets Pvt Ltd, manufacturer of ‘Grima’ brand web offset printing machines, presented live demo of Grima 36 press, which offers printing of 4 to 24 pages newspaper broadsheet single colour on both sides, with speed up to 30,000 cph.

Web Master exhibited Duplex web offset configuration (4H + super folder + reel stand). “Our Web Master 4 Hi tower can print 4x4 colours on both sides of the one web or 2x2 colours on both sides of two webs or single colour on both sides of four webs,” conveyed Sudhendu Sharma of the company.