Mukul Luthra: “The challenge in die-making is not the competition”​

Mukul Luthra speaks to the WhatPackaging? team about the challenges in the in Indian die-making space and how Haryana-based, Artize Die Makers try to tackle it

17 Oct 2018 | By Abhishek Muralidharan

Mukul Luthra, managing director, Artize Die Makers

Mukul Luthra, managing director, Artize Die Makers says,” The die-making market is growing in India, but still 60 percent of dies are being made manually and the rest 40 percent are being made by the laser. Which is why, I feel, there is a 60 percent potential to switch from manual to automatic dies.”

“More and more die-makers are entering the Indian market which is a great sign as it is boosting the conversion of the manual dies to automatic dies (laser dies). “

According to Luthra, the major challenge in the Indian die-making industry is the way businesses run in India. He explains that apart from the top category of converters in the market, the lower end of the pyramid, lack the vision to upgrade the technology and also the effort to record and analyse the data. 

The lower tier manufacturers in the die-making industry in most of the cases don’t review their production and neglect aspects such as the downtime, as they don’t record data for which the analysis can be done. 

“Efficient recording is vital to make the owner understand where the problem lies, the converters should record the processing data at least for six months to see the growth-graph and rectify the problems." 

Luthra explains that dies are a critical component in the manufacturing process, and it is vital that the converters understand this tool.

"By choosing the right type of tooling, manufacturers can improve the efficiency of their die-cutting machine drastically," he added.  

As the die-cutting machines being used nowadays run with a much higher speed, the laser dies/tooling has to be of optimum quality in order to run the machines effectively. 

“We ask the converters their most difficult job and by analysing their requirements, the nature of the job and its machine runnability, we responsibly decide which tooling is to be used to run the job efficiently.”

Not just that. The Artize Die Makers’ team assists the operators to run the job on the machine. 

The die-making industry has a huge potential for growth only if the companies are more system-driven than manpower driven, and it’s imperative that they integrate the latest technologies and correct best practices.