Essel Propack a global manufacturer of laminated tubes, has developed, installed and launched a new generation extrusion laminator at its Vasind plant in Maharashtra’s Shahapur district. Essel Propack has conceptualized, designed and co-developed the extrusion laminator with a technology partner as one of its ‘Green & Sustainable’ initiatives that benefits its stakeholders. The size of the investment for this project is around Rs.39 crore (approximately USD $5.5 million).
Speaking at the launch, Essel Propack’s COO, MR Ramaswamy, said, “As a responsible manufacturer and global leader, we have designed the new laminator to not only meet the quality and performance requirements of our valued customers, but also included several features to cater to the requirements of ‘Go Green’ and ‘Sustainability’ of our customers and all our stakeholders.”
The new laminator’s machine control system uses artificial intelligence and energy savers that reserve power for use in a ‘regenerative mode,’ a feature that sets it apart from all of its counterparts. The best feature of the new laminator is that no solvent is used to prime the lamination surface, prior to or during extrusion. There is zero effluent generation during the lamination process. With the addition of this laminator, the company has strengthened its capability of ensuring uninterrupted supply of world-class tube laminates to all its customers. The new laminator will also help the company to increase its annual lamination capacity to 80 million square meters from existing 55 million square meters.
Essel Propack’s new laminator is equipped with several special features to ensure highest quality tubes being produced and delivered to customers. The new extrusion laminator can produce 30% more – 80 million square meters laminate annually. The new design facilitates processing of latest and futuristic multi-model polymers, which is the future in laminated tubes, a capability to help company to be future ready.
The new laminator has high precision callipers with auto correction features which can be used to ensure uniform thickness, stable quality and consistency in the laminate, conforming to the highest standards prescribed for packaging non-oral care especially in the pharma and food categories.
Essel Propack’s new laminator has high speed automatic surface defect detectors. The detectors are used for 100% checking on both sides of the laminate for identifying and tagging all defects. The data collected from this detection system can be used for enhancing product quality in subsequent process.
Essel Propack has 20 state-of-the-art facilities in 11 countries and employs over 2,852 people representing 25 different nationalities. The company sells over 7 billion tubes and continues to grow every year. It had a turnover of over $368 million in FY 2017.
