Astron Packaging books Bobst FFG 1228; eyes Rs 300-crore turnover

With this heavy-duty investment, which is estimated to be close to Rs 26-crore, Astron’s senior vice president, Niraj Darji is ready for what it’s worth and hopes to better it.

 

The machine will be commissioned in December 2015 and Team Astron is confident to close the financial year 2015-16 with a jump of Rs 50-crore, by clocking a turnover of Rs 150-crore.

 

“The target is to achieve Rs 300-crore turnover in the next two and a half year,” said Niraj in conversation with PrintWeek India.

 

At present, Astron has two four-colour Nantai flexo cutter slotter and rotary die-cutter machines. The company will deploy the new kit to produce premium corrugated boxes with heavy graphics and shiny paper for the export market.

 

Niraj said, “We have been exporting high quality corrugated trays and boxes to various developed as well developing countries. We observed that their needs include accurate die-cutting and graphic boxes with high-quality printing. We use virgin kraft white liner while they need printing on shiny paper (coated kraft liner). This is a limitation on our existing presses, because, with the four-colour flexo machine we have, we cannot print on coated paper.”

 

After having approached several top Chinese equipment manufacturers with the requirements, Niraj, not being satisfied with the print quality, consistency and accuracy of die cutting and high speed gluing line in one machine, decided to go for the world best technology.  

 

“Along with experts from Bobst Lyon, I visited several European installations of similar Bobst kit to assess the print quality, before making the decision. We are now checking with vendors for ink, anilox and other consumables for the compatibility so that we are fully ready to go into production once the machine is installed by this December,” said Niraj.

 

The Bobst FFG 1228 NT RS is a six-colour flexo machine, which is also capable of slitting, scoring, folding, gluing and rotary die-cutting inline. It is a 2.8m wide machine. It is equipped with Bobst Rapidset system for fast printing makereadies while the machine is running. The rotary die-cutting facility enables it to produce custom designed boxes apart from regular slotted container (RSC) boxes.

 

The 60-metre FFG 1228 is one of the fastest in the Bobst’s FFG series with a speed of 15,000 sheets per hour. Not only will Astron cater to the top-end export market for packaging of pharma and fresh produce, but also it plans to create new avenues in India.

 

“There is a big market for fruits industry in India. Apart from this, there is a big gap in the consumer packaging market, where litho-laminated cartons govern the market. We hope to capture this segment with six-colour printing on a single line operation, where the intermediate operation of offset printing will be eliminated, thereby providing same or better result than offset and all product produced inline and in one shot,” said Niraj.

 

 “The new installation will ensure that our customers find the right product on right time,” concluded Niraj.