TCPL Packaging acquired a 60% stake in Creative Offset in 2021, and the balance 40% in late 2023. In these years, it has modernized the Noida plant and brought it into its overall orbit. Now known as Creatives, the plant marks the group’s diversification into new markets and segments such as rigid and luxury boxes for mobile phones, smartwatches, wearables, and specialty gift packaging segments.
The plant in Noida works for mobile phones and wearables brands such as Samsung, boat, Realme, and several smartwatch and perfume brands. Rohit Khanna, its managing director, emphasizes the continued and steady growth of the rigid box industry and predicts substantial growth in the upcoming year. The plant in Noida has updated its processes with increased automation and higher-speed equipment.
Komori 6-color plus coater with UV and IR curing at TCPL Packaging plant in NoidaSeveral post-press and finishing machines have been moved to Noida from TCPL plants in Haridwar, including a Bobst die cutter, a Robus folder-gluer, and the Sakurai screen printing machine. In addition, a new Komori 6-color plus coater with UV and IR curing was recently installed and duly inaugurated on 31 January 2024. The new press has a maximum sheet size of 750 mm x 1050 mm and is rated at a maximum speed of 16,500 impressions an hour. Khanna said, “It’s a new relationship for TCPL with Komori,” implying that much depends on the performance of the new press.
The company has the whole printing and packaging solutions in-house at the plant in Greater Noida. During our visit to the plant, Shubham Vashisth, Creatives’ assistant manager of maintenance, took us through the whole plant, showcasing its monocarton, corrugated, and rigid box-making capabilities. The complete in-house setup from prepress to finishing and despatch starts with the prepress including the Kodak CtP, printing, corrugation, lamination, die-cutting, foldergluer, and window pasting sections, till the final cartons and boxes are dispatched.
According to Vashisth, the Sakurai screen printing machine is currently one of the busiest – as its finishing effects are in great demand. The rigid box-making section was also buzzing during our visit, continuously making luxury boxes with magnetic closures. Among the new additions in this section are the three Zhongke automatic rigid box-making lines and the magnetic closure machine, which have increased the capacity of this section with the earlier Pinchuang automatic rigid box-making machine. He says that all the carton printing, converting and finishing processes at the plant have moved towards automation after the TCPL acquisition and investments.
