Replika's grand Open House on 22 February

When a book-printing powerhouse like Replika, the PrintWeek India Post-Press Company of the Year 2015, won for the fifth time in a row, invests, one must sit up and take notice.

09 Feb 2016 | By Rahul Kumar

Which is why the who’s who of publishing will be present in Kundli on 22 February in 2016.
 
These include, Stephen Esson, group publishing operations director and Neil Bradford, divisional production director of Penguin Random House UK, Louise Cameroon, group production director, Bloomsbury Publishing UK plus other luminaries from overseas besides CEOs of leading Indian publishers paper mills and machine suppliers will attend the open house plus visit the new Replika factory.
 
Bhuvnesh Seth, managing director of Replika says the company was facing a bottleneck for space in the post-press segment. Therefore, it invested heavily in a new building with a floor space of more than 4,80,000 sq/ft, not far from its existing facility in Sonepat. The new facility has separate space for hardcover and soft cover books. The plan is to make the plant fully automatic, with less manual intervention, so as to cut down on labour cost and make the production process streamlined, smooth and professional.
 
The company has proven year after year that its post-press facility is one of the country’s best, and it wants to maintain the reputation. It has two online softcover and one hardcover bookbinding lines, and now, is adding one central staple line.
 
“Our ideal capacity is 200,000 books per day. We have achieved 85,000 books by the end of the year 2015. In this, we are doing 55,000 hardcover books and 30,000 soft covers. In terms of paper, we have two million impressions per day, that is, one million sheets,” said Seth.
 

Seth said, the new building took three years to be fully operational at a cost Rs 60 crore. In addition, Replika Press has invested in a Heidelberg CD 74 and Heidelberg 2/2 or 4/0 three months ago, as well as a Ryobi and a Canon Oce.
 
Today, digital is the name of the game, and since  customers are asking for digital, Replika has boosted its digital printing capacity as well. The company already has a Canon Colour iPR C7010VP and Canon Oce VP 6160 Ultra Process Module 6000 Series to offer digital publishing solutions to its customers.
 
The Kundli-based Replika Press was in the news recently for having bagged the CAPEXIL award. Replika reported exports of the highest value - Rs 7580.89 lakh - with exports in countries like Tanzania, Kuwait, Nigeria, Ghana, Oman and Singapore among others.