Packaging South Asia spoke to the founder-partners of Pune-based Infinity Solutions, Tufan Kumar Saha and Sarfaraz Pathan, to understand their business plan and how they look at the currently evolving market. “Infinity Solutions was born with the idea of providing complete solutions with deep information and knowledge about not only corrugation equipment but it also brings a rich background of process know-how of providing total solutions to the end user. We’re here to provide turnkey project solutions starting with not just the equipment but also the layout, the machine configuration and budget of the project and a lot more.”
Both Saha and Pathan have vast experience of working in top global OEMs from Europe that helped them understand the entire process as well as gain technical know-how, which is critical for any business to operate in this industry. “We have exclusively partnered with some of the leading and established brands in the industry. In corrugation, we have exclusively partnered Wanlian, a company that has around 20 installations in the Indian market including some of the biggest names. We find that there are many gaps not only in equipment sale but also in process know-how and since we have experience of selling top-quality European equipment, we can add value and help bridge those gaps,” said Pathan.
He added, “It’s a vast process and in a typical corrugation factory, you need a lot of equipment. The main equipment is the corrugator and the printing machine but there are a lot of other ancillary equipment like conveyors, balers, glue machines, boilers and others. We represent four overseas OEMs, which will cover most of the equipment that are found in a large corrugation project—Wanlian from China, which supplies corrugators; Shanghai Dinglong from China, which specializes in flexo printers with ancillary equipment; Qingdao Guangchuan from China, which offers automatic material handling and logistics solutions; and Chuen Huah Chemical (CHC) from Taiwan, which supplies automatic starch kitchen and process solutions.”
Saha added that their objective is not to supply the entire range of equipment for corrugation; rather it is to help customers with optimum solutions in the procurement of the two main units of a corrugation plant—the corrugator and the flexo printer—which can account for up to 80% of the total equipment cost. Infinity will guide the customer toward automation in a smooth and optimum manner without stretching his investment budget. “The Indian corrugation industry is in a transition mode wherein automation is slowly making its way into a traditional labor-intensive domain. Any wrong decision with higher or lower levels of investment can disturb the future performance of the project. This is where Infinity intends to add value for customers,” said Saha.
He explained that Infinity’s main objective is to help customers manage their risk and operations better even as they automate, and to boost their confidence with Infinity’s dependable local service organization. Not only will Infinity ensure the best after-sales support to the customer but will also help him with valuable advice on other ancillary equipment that the company doesn’t directly deal in. Speaking on the price sensitivity of the Indian market, Saha said that it is a challenge but the market is evolving as more businesses are getting exposed to better technology that will allow them to operate very efficiently.
Saha pointed out that corrugators will soon realize how lower investments in cheaper and much less efficient machinery with lower level of automation may save them some money in the short run but, eventually, their incremental cost will be much higher than the difference between the cost of high quality automated machines and their cheaper semi-automatic machines. The running cost, paper wastage, and rejection along with other drawbacks of the cheaper machines will far outweigh the cost difference with higher quality machines.
Going forward, Infinity will focus on building up a strong service team with good knowledge of process and substantial experience. That will be a critical part of their operation in India. As Infinity Solutions intends to provide complete corrugation machinery solutions to customers interested in switching over to fully automated systems, the pre-sales and after-sales service support will be a critical factor in helping them find a strong foothold in this evolving market.
