German packaging machinery solutions provider Windmoeller & Hoelscher (W&H) is witnessing a very strong growth in its CI flexo press business in India with the number of annual instalments increasing, Anuj Sahni, general manager – Sales, W&H India said during the Image to Print event which was held in Rajkot in mid-September.
Sahni said that the Indian flexible packaging market is now absorbing 10 to 15 CI flexo presses every year now compared with 2 to 3 few years back. “Globally our CI flexo business is witnessing robust growth but in India the growth is even stronger. We have created a benchmark of performance here,” he said.
He shared that there are some important reasons for growth in footprint of CI flexo presses in India. CI flexo presses favor food grade inks, they work well with sensitive substrates and flexo is well suited for short-run jobs, he added.
Sahni also talked about various CI flexo presses that W&H manufactures and said that Miraflex is the company’s best-selling press globally. He focused on the web inspection system by W&H on Miraflex and said that some new highlights on the Miraflex include optimized web guidance, better access to corona treater and chill roller, and faster cleaning and maintenance.
According to Sahni, W&H’s rotogravure business too has seen good traction globally, primarily because of growth in the Asian market. The company at present has two models in its rotogravure portfolio: Dynastar and Heliostar, which has two variants Heliostar ‘S’ and Heliostar ‘A’. Sanhi informed the audience that W&H has, through Dynastar, optimized the rotogravure process for short-run jobs with features such as fast changeover, high print efficiency and high output, among others.
W&H is working on adoption of Industry 4.0 and in the process has integrated all the modules in its CI flexo and rotogravure presses on a single panel. “This helps in controlling the press from a single panel. It also helps the machine in talking to the outer world. These features make our machines future ready,” he said.
Talking about CI flexo versus rotogravure, he said that these two technologies should complement each other, and convertors of certain size should have both on their shop floors.
W&H also used the Image to Print platform to launch its India newsletter called ‘Conversions India’, which will talk about technology, customer feedback and success stories.
