Based in Bhiwandi near Mumbai, Papierus Packaging specializes in printing and converting monocartons. The company moved to its current premises in September 2020 from its older unit in the northern Mumbai suburb of Vasai. The Bhiwandi unit is over 27,000 square feet and is almost three times the size of the Vasai unit. As the company is looking to set up a corrugation unit in the near future it plans to move to an even bigger unit.
“When we moved to the Bhiwandi unit we not only got the shop floor but also printing and converting equipment. Earlier in Vasai, we could not handle all the jobs on our own so we needed to outsource work to other printers. At Bhiwandi with our expanded printing and converting capacity, we are now able to process all the cartons in-house. However, we are still growing and the packaging industry itself also grows every year and we will now need to move to a much bigger unit so that we are future ready,” said Rikin Vakharia of Papierus Packaging.
The company currently operates three sheetfed Heidelberg offset presses – a 7-color, a 6-color, and a 2-color. In the converting section, it has two Bobst die cutters and three folder gluers, also from Bobst. One of the folder gluers, a brand-new Ambition 76 A1, was commissioned in August 2021. For prepress, it is a CtP output device and in the postpress and finishing section die punching, sheet pasting, cutting, and hot foil stamping machines. The company supplies cartons to customers in the sporting goods segment, industrial products, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, among others. It converts about 150-200 tons of board every month.
Papierus is looking to set up a corrugation line for F-flute cartons. According to Vakharia, the company is seeing a rising demand for corrugated cartons from its existing customers. “Setting up a corrugation line makes sense to us as many of our existing customers have requirements for corrugated boxes. At present they have to go to someone else for these. With an in-house corrugation line, we can provide complete carton services to our customers,” he said.
Productivity jump due to the Ambition folder gluer
Talking about the experience of working with a brand new Ambition folder gluer since September, Vakharia said that the commissioning of the machine was a milestone for the company as it was their first new Bobst machinery. “At Vasai, we were using locally made folder gluers which created a bottleneck at the converting stage due to their low productivity. Now with the Bobst in action, our productivity has almost doubled. We have also managed to increase and widen our client base,” Vakharia said.
Bullish on Indian packaging
Vakharia says the company is extremely bullish about the prospects of the Indian packaging industry.
“We expect the annual growth of the Indian packaging industry to average between 12% to 14% for the foreseeable future. This growth will be driven by a rise in disposable income and population. Gradual phasing out of single-use plastic will also give a boost to the demand for paper packaging,” he concluded.
