Drupa is timed right to bring out the best, says Mahesh Kode

The Indian footfall was prominently evident at Messe in general and for DuPont in particular.

We had significant technological developments to offer, including Fast-ITR (solventless thermal development of flexo photo-polymer sleeves in in-the-round format), a TD3000 to process flat plates of largest size of 52x80inch by the Fast technology and the DigiFlow 2000 ECLF among others.

Of all the products launched, some are of more immediate relevance to the Indian scenario and the DigiFlow solution for creating flat-fops within a digital framework without usage of films will be key for trade-shops and printers alike. But an even greater delight for printers is the new plate types in both fast and solvent-based format (DFP and DSP), which can render higher SID through the plate itself, without the need for flat-tops / films / texturing / additional steps or equipment.

The greatest challenge at this Drupa was putting things in the right perspective for all our customers, be it trade-shops or printers. They have been presented with various technical developments and not knowing which is the best part forward.

DuPont displayed products or technology that has been firmly established after trailing in an operational environment, fully ready for commercialisation. Yes, scaled-up production to meet increased demand for these new products does take some time, but we are already in the process of seeding the Indian market to help customers evaluate the benefits in the local context.

I would say the “quality” of visitors was excellent, meaning that we had only “serious” customers visiting our booth! Apart from our existing ones, we had scores of prospective customers- either gravure or offset printers sitting on the fence, wanting to get into flexo, but wanting that final assurance that this was a step in the right, even if different direction!

Dupont works toward signing off deals at the Drupa booth with meticulous spadework, and constantly monitor the benefits of the entire event, even in the months to come. Some deals such as Creative Graphics, AM-Board, etc. have been publicly announced, but the deal-value and the details of the other deals have to be kept confidential for both internal and external obvious reasons.

Pre and post-Drupa, we should be seeing atleast eight new key wide-web CI-flexo installations in the country in this year. Double that number of new quality narrow-web label-presses. Besides these there is a clear trend with hitherto offset-printers investing in mid-web flexo for high-end valued-added mono-cartons, customers opting for doing say, short-run shrink-sleeves by flexo rather than gravure, and these are all unchartered waters.

When we talk about this Drupa being an inkjet Drupa, I view it as an under the umbrella of digital printing, be it dye or toner-based and with whatever new formats being advertised. The fact of the matter is that come every Drupa, several such players come up with a lot of fanfare, only to have half of them disappear the next show, or, as is used metaphorically, it’s more often than not “same wine, new bottle” !  

Yes, there is no doubt digital will grow, but it will always remain at best a complementary process to the conventional print-formsIt is significant to note that not a single gravure press was even on shelf-display, signaling that it may have reached a saturation point in further evolution.

I have always maintained that any new or radical changes in technology takes time to evolve, typically in a span on 3-4 years, and Drupa is thus timed right to bring out the best. The multitude of Indian show-organisers must take a cue and space out their events instead of running them back-to-back every year, year-after-year, so that something significant comes out of participating in such events.

My takeaway: Drupa is timed right to bring out the best.... we too should have fewer shows with high content to bring significant outcome.