Brilliant is future ready

“ The name Brilliant Printers should be a brand-name on the tip of anyone who has a print requirement anywhere in Asia,” says Anil Rego of Brilliant Printers in Bengaluru. He tells Ramu Ramanathan how he intends to bring it to fruition

28 Jan 2019 | By Ramu Ramanathan

The Regos: Thomas Manil Rego, Paul Sunil Rego and Peter Anil Rego

Ramu Ramanathan (RR): For Brilliant Printers, after the shift to the new plant in 2014, how have these four years been? How did you build it up brick by brick?
Anil Rego (AR): We had a planned strategy to move to a bigger place. It has been a gradual shift from a 55,000 sqft space (own) to 80,000 sqft space which was on a rental basis and finally to 1,53,000 sqft space now. While this new space was coming up, we were aggressive with marketing and branding. So the upscaling was two-fold: the infrastructure as well as marketing.

RR: For the past four years you were only concentrating on the infrastructure and equipment…
AR: Yes. Finally, we are setting up the office space which is a part of a 75-day project. We had decided not to finalise on the office space till the infrastructure was ready. This office space will be occupied by individual managers wherein we have the production, export, customer support and their respective staff in an open office arrangement. Our total employee strength stands at 450. Of these around 150 people who are technically skilled in handling the machines, have been with us for 20 to 30 years.

RR: What’s the target for Brilliant Printers in 2018? 
AR: In 2016 we had a sales turnover of Rs 53-cr which rose to Rs 82-cr in 2017. For 2018, we are targeting Rs 100-cr.


Binding utilisation stands at 45  to 50%. And so, Brilliant has commissioned two machines in the heatset web offset category

RR: There was a specific focus on (a) your export work and (b) producing Bibles. What have you done to bolster these specific focus areas as well as be future ready?
AR: We have decided to get our administration professionally managed with an appointment of a CFO who will be leading our finances on the export front. We will also be having a full-fledged HR team and a CEO as well. Regarding the bolstering of our export work, we have realised that the best marketing tool in the printing industry is word of mouth. Our export customers are from many countries, and it has taken us ten to fifteen years to build a customer base in the international market. Due to this, publishers are aware of an Indian company called Brilliant Printers, and word of mouth publicity has helped us achieve this. We are going to capitalise on this.

RR: In the case of a family-owned printing company you have opted for a CFO to look after the finances. It is against the traditional print industry module…
AR: As it is a growing company, it is essential to have a CFO to manage the financials professionally. Also, we have three new investors in our company, and our duty of professionalism demands that they get to know about the finances on a professional and regular basis. The investors decided to put in the money because we were transparent and we want to continue to lay this emphasis.

RR: And at the technological end, are you recruiting professionals there as well?
AR: Yes. We have recently appointed a new web offset manager whom you met on the shopfloor. He is an engineer with a work experience of about 18 years. He will handle web offset division specifically concerning quality, productivity and training. Till now this was being managed in-house with the operators and supervisors at various levels helping out each other. I completely agree with the concept of recruiting people who are more knowledgeable than us.

RR: How will it have an impact on the production floor?
AR: The professionals will introduce best practices on the shopfloor. And we are flexible with aligning our production according to them. At the same time, we have our set of guidelines and it will be the job of the professionals to enhance the quality and quantity within these set parameters. To give you an example, currently, we have appointed an expert in binding operations with an overall experience of 23 years. 

Snag list closure is site-specific and depends upon the extent of the project. In a typical project like ours wherein the office space is around 15,000 to 16,000 sqft and built in three months, the time required for the closure of snags is two to four weeks. Snag list is all about being aware of the imperfections even before implementation. This list enables us to eliminate the snags during the implementation phase itself. Any difference between what we would have conceptualised and what we get to see will be considered as a snag.
This includes the material quality and workmanship issues that we encounter on site. That and any new minor additions that might be required will also get tagged as a snag. We are implementing a turnkey project. This is handled by an architect.


RR: What about the infrastructure in terms of equipment?
AR: Our machines are imported from countries like Germany, USA, Japan, and the UK. In the past four years, we have invested heavily in machinery for printing on thin paper, mainly the expensive ones from Timsons. Our bindery is now wholly in-house. The machines include the recent acquisition of Ochsner edge-gilding and corner-rounding machine. We have a daily production capacity of producing 1,00,000 perfect-bound books, 50,000 saddle-stitched books and 20,000 hardcover books.

RR: And what about issues like, machine maintenance and?
AR: We have more than 100  machines in toto. There is a schedule that we follow in accordance to our production, process and planning team. We lay out a yearly plan and then carry out the maintenance according to machine usage. This involves getting regular feedback from operators, which are then plugged in our yearly maintenance plan.


The Regos with the Ochsner edge-gilding and corner-rounding equipment which costs half a million Euros

RR: What if there is a mechanical breakdown?
AR: We have a specially assigned breakdown maintenance team. 95% of the time we can handle it on our own. It’s only in a few cases that we feel the need to contact the machine manufacturer. We also manufacture certain parts like tooling for plastic components, metal and nylon blocks, springs, rubber components, frames, gears and shafts that are not readily available. We have vendors who are capable of manufacturing these parts based on specifications and drawings.

RR: Bible publishing is a huge market especially the export market. What is the way in which it works? In terms of the delivery cycles, expectations in turnaround times and production outflow…
AR: Bible is different from any other book product as it needs the expertise to print on thin paper. Often there is a leeway of four to six months to fulfil a particular order depending upon the quantity and finishing operations.

RR: With the existing infrastructure are you able to fulfil the capacities?
AR: In terms of printing, our capacities need to be enhanced in the web offset division. In binding, currently, we stand at 45  to 50% utilisation. We are yet to add volumes to bring about a complete usage of our bindery. We have commissioned two more machines in the heatset web offset category wherein one is a five-colour machine, and the other is a four-colour machine. These two machines will double our printing capacity which our bindery will be able to absorb.

RR: You seem to be investing at a time when the printing industry is reeling under the effects of demonetisation, GST and the increase in raw material cost due to currency fluctuation…
AR: Demonetisation did not affect us since we had a 100% cheque payment structure. Also, none of our customers deals in cash and that too reduced the adverse impact on our business. Demonetisation did affect our staff when they were not able to draw the required amounts from the banks for their daily needs.

 Green initiatives at Brilliant 

  1. Our plant is self-sufficient in terms that our water sources are purely internal. We have a couple of operating borewells on which we are entirely dependent. The water from the borewells is utilised for two purposes: domestic and industrial.  For domestic usage, we utilise 16,000 to 18,000 litres of water per day whereas for industrial usage the consumption is at 1,000 to 1,500 litres per day. The wastewater from both domestic and industrial users are treated as two different streams. The wastewater from the domestic usage is sent to our STP (sewage treatment plant), and the one from industrial usage is sent to ETP (effluent treatment plant). After the primary and secondary treatment at ETP, the partially treated industrial wastewater stream is sent to STP for tertiary treatment and final filtration. This treated water is then utilised by us for gardening, thereby reducing the demand for fresh water for gardening purposes.
     
  2. We have an excellent hazardous waste storage facility. We have categorised different storage rooms and classified the waste in seven categories according to the Pollution Control Board (PCB) norms. Each waste has a specific space designated, and we keep a daily track of it through log books. We log the regular movement of waste, and after a month this is generated into a report and sent to PCB. This well-segregated waste is then sent to an authorised recycler once in a month. This waste comprises of used oil, machine oil, and the oil separated from ETP, ETP Sludge, cotton waste soaked with oil and ink chemicals, plastic ink cans and metal ink cans.
     
  3. The third initiative we have begun is of harvesting rainwater. Our entire facility spans across 7.5 acres. We have around 19 soak pits where we channelise all the rainwater from the roof and road into these pits enabling soaking of water into the ground. Apart from this, on about 23,000 sqft of roof area, we have put a gallery filtration unit which was custom made and constructed on site. This filtered water is sent to a tank with a capacity to hold three lakh litres of water. We intend to utilise this water for our fire hydrant system. During heavy rains, we get about three to four inches of filtered water going into this tank. We turned the issue into a win-win situation by avoiding flooding and ensuring excess water from outside the facility to recharge our grounds.
     
  4. Once in six months, we do an analysis of our borewells as well from the neighbouring borewells. We monitor samples for physical parameters such as colour, odour, pH value, Turbidity and TDS (total dissolved solids). TDS is the amount of salts dissolved in water and hence not visible. We intend to monitor the parameters as a reduction in TDS constantly would indicate good recharge of rainwater into the grounds. We also monitor other parameters such as the presence of metals, hardness, and bacteria count.


RR: But in Karnataka, you have had a VAT of 11.5%...
AR: Yes. The breakdown of this figure leads to 6% excise duty on printing paper and 5.5% VAT. We were more expensive by 5.5% than the printers from other states where there was no VAT. Now with GST, that figure stands at 12% for books, all India (an increase of 0.5%). So, neither our publishers nor we got affected by its implementation. The publishers got affected by their partner printers where there was no VAT but now has a GST.

RR: The impact of GST on exports? 
AR: There has been no impact on exports due to GST. But it has been beneficial for us in the domestic market. Previously we were paying duty on paper plus additional charges. Now with GST, we get a refund of IGST (Integrated Goods and Service Tax). This credit has helped us to be more competitive.​​​



Daily production capacity of 1,00,000 perfect-bound books, 50,000 saddle-stitched books, 20,000 hardcover books​


RR: What next for Brilliant Printers?
AR: The principal aim is that our name should pop up every time someone thinks of a printing requirement anywhere in Asia. We are consolidating our customer base to provide them with better service and quality. We will also be developing our ERP system in the next few months.

RR: Final question, future of books according to you?
AR: The books are going to grow. When I talk to American publishers, I get to know that the book market has grown by 3% to 4%in the last year. It is an opportunity for the Indian printers because of the developments in China. If the publisher, printer and the government unite, then Indian print will benefit from it.