The making of quality at Avantika Printers

Avantika is a story of one man’s entrepreneurial grit. The owner MN Pandey was a mathematics teacher before joining a printing firm and before starting his own company at the age of 40

Himanshu Pandey, the second generation of the family business, is a hands-on support. He went through the EFI certification so that he could train his operators about the process. He loves gadgets and rides a Harley Davidson Street 750

Avantika Printers has digitally printed OUP’s A Socio-Political History of Marathi Theatre: Thirty Nights on the Oce VP 6160 press. This 1,440-page of seminal study by Pune-based theatre academic Makrand Sathe comes in three volumes

The design team at Avantika is fully equipped with latest software and equipment. Himanshu Pandey takes care of this segment

Not just Google, even Avantika believes in open work environment. The shopfloor has just one office, belonging to MN Pandey

A printing professional, with decades of experience in advertising and publishing industry, MN Pandey has placed his bets on digital. He believes digital is the grandson of print and it is the future

One of Avantika’s winning samples during PrintWeek India Awards 2016 was the ‘Ek Nayi Subah’ coffee-table book, with a print run of 20 copies printed on the C800 using 190 gsm Rendezvous paper. It comes with a seven-inch screen and a port to charge, to play a video, all within the book. The client wanted to give its customers the feel of the event they are promoting and so the video screen was important

The Bhagvad Gita (According to Gandhi), a special edition presented to former US president Barack Obama by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to US, was printed and fabricated at Avantika

Grafica Flextronica is Avantika’s partner in automatic screen printing

Avantika has an all-inclusive digital printing set-up comprising of pre-press, digital printing, screen printing and post-press. Offset printing is outsourced

The digital printing company produces jobs on combined technologies and uses 40% screen printing in its jobs along with digital and sometimes offset to make the jobs more colourful and attractive

The beauty of Avnatika’s operations is a combined use of manual and automatic machines under one roof

Avantika is one of the few print firms in India which has opted for finishing units that go inline with the digital printing machine

A fully programmable cutting machine in operation at Avantika

To strengthen its hold in the publishing industry, Avantika has invested in PUR binding technology

The Marco Bond lamination machine at Avantika

I want to invest 50% of my cash flow in automation in finishing and binding to produce innovative products. The remaining I want to keep as liquid working capital to sustain the new production line, Pandey tells PrintWeek India

Avantika is one of the most feted digital printing company of the country. The company was the joint winner in the Digital Printer of the Year category during PrintWeek India Awards 2016

For a digital printer, Himanshu Pandey says opportunity in corporate segment includes business cards, letterheads; printing of short-run marketing collaterals and product catalogues with specific technical/marketing information’s to target a set of consumers. Other opportunities include event-specific collaterals, which include invitation cards, docket's folders, notepads, which are targeted to a known customer base with the relevant region-based information

The wedding card for the granddaughter of the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir for the client Benchmark Graphics was screen-printed on various papers from Sona Papers, and featured finishing such as die-cutting, foiling, edge gilding, tone on tiny printing, UV by screen, metal prototyping and so on. The print run was 800

The Match Box for Mukul Raut portfolio, with a print run of 200, was digitally printed on metallic paper Star Dream Quartz 260 gsm. The cover was printed on coated paper SBS. Post-press included die-cut and pasting

The Calabash menu for Visual Print N Pack has a print run of 50. The cover is hardbound with black geltex material with gold foil and laser-cutting window. The inserts were digitally printed on ensemble white 210 gsm

The invitation card for YS Design Studio, with a print run of 100, was digitally printed on Natural Evolution 280 gsm, and later die cut and pasted

The Oracle Box marketing mailer for Avaya Global is a hardbound box with red PVC textured material, with screen-printed cover. The print run was 500

The hardbound Diwali gift box with die-cut was made for Dupont Nutrition & Health. The job, with print run of 400 was screen printed in gold and white colour, and was digitally printed on roma red 120 gsm paper

The bespoke hardbound box screen printed on cream satin was designed for the participants of the Indo-African Summit for the client Encompass Events Management. The print run was 50

The flower-shaped invitation card for undisclosed customer features combination of screen and digital printing and laser-cutting

Avantika Printers is back as the Digital Printer of the Year 2016 after making a hat-trick in the category a few years ago