Echaar Equipments is a hard-core Indian engineering company with experience in several critical sectors as a supplier of precision components and equipment for sectors such as nuclear, defence, wind energy, oil and gas as steel manufacturing. Several years ago, in its factories outside Mumbai, it decided to manufacture CI flexo presses for the flexible packaging industry. This was a challenging proposition that several companies have attempted in recent years, mostly with indifferent results.
However, Echaar’s attitude has been on the one hand to supply a stable CI flexo press with heavy sidewalls and modern ease of operation, and on the other – to understand the Indian market and its growing demand for a variety of speeds, widths, configurations and levels of automation. The company also manufactures a heavy-duty stack flexo press for flexible packaging applications that may not require a central impression drum. It has supplied flexible packaging solutions to a variety of converters.
After the sale and installation of its first CI flexo press built in its factories in Thane, Echaar established a new factory in Ambernath for the final assembly of its flexo presses as well as some of the bigger windmill components that it manufactures. The first press it built was an 8-color machine capable of printing at 400 meters a minute with a 1300 mm print width.
The press has been moved from its original customers in Kolkata and smoothly reinstalled in Kanpur, where it is performing well. This was a protracted learning experience in which Echaar understood that CI flexo is an aspirational technology for Indian flexible packaging converters, and no matter how robust or automated the press it still requires considerable expertise compared to rotogravure.
Subsequently, Echaar sold its high-end 500 meters-a-minute Flexomaster HR 500 CI flexo press to a demanding customer in Ahmedabad for printing on extremely thin films for hygiene products. The performance of this 8-color press seems to have convinced several potential customers, who nevertheless, each had their particular specifications in mind. Right from the beginning Echaar has been aware of the diversity of the Indian market – it knew that it would have to produce CI flexo presses of varying speeds and configured with several optional features and levels of automation.
However, to be able to simplify the press, it first had to manufacture the high-end features, components, and ancillary equipment such as its own designed plate-mounting and registration system.
The Indian market gained traction in the past couple of years with the installation of CI flexo presses at Flexure Print N Pack – an 8-color at 300 meters a minute, and another 8-color 1.3 meter wide at Safeco Hygiene in Vadodara rated at 400 meters a minute, just installed in March 2025. In April 2025, yet another CI flexo press was installed at a customer near Mumbai – this is an 8-color 1-meter wide press, rated to run at 300 meters a minute.
With several presses now running, Echaar has put its growing team of customer-facing resources into place including, sales, installation, and maintenance – and the market has started believing in it as a reliable domestic supplier of advanced CI flexo presses that are competitively priced. Several orders are in place with five presses currently being built and plans to deliver seven or eight presses in the current financial year. One of these is for a Chennai customer – an 8-color CI flexo with a width of 1.3 meters, rated to run at 400 meters a minute. Another 1-meter-wide press with a rated speed of 300 meters a minute is being built for an Indian converter.
Export orders
Echaar has three export orders for CI flexo presses, in hand. The first is for a 9-color 1-meter-wide CI press for a customer in Sri Lanka rated at 300 meters a minute. This press will be configured with eight printing units around CI drum and the ninth unit for various uses including coating placed downstream. The second order is from an African customer – an 8-color press with a 1.3-meter width rated to run at 600 meters a minute. The third overseas order is from a Russian customer – another 9-color press similar to the press for Sri Lanka and also rated at 300 meters a minute, but this time with a 1.2–meter width.
Echaar has persisted for the past five years in continuous learning, manufacturing, testing and demonstration of its CI flexo presses. Even in lean years, it continued to take part in Indian and overseas events – it kept listening. But right from the start, it knew that it would have to build a variety of configurations that are robust enough to work for first–time CI flexo flexible materials converters.
It has consistently believed that manufacturing a robust press and offering ease-of–use operation features will not be enough to build a reputation as a reliable supplier. Although the company is now gaining traction both domestically and overseas, it knows that performance in the field will ultimately determine its success – and even then, it will have to continue to offer the most competitive price.
Naresh Khanna is again a judge for The Sustainability Awards
