In an exclusive interview with Ajit Suvarna, proprietor of Star Offset, speaks about his experience of Digital Printing after acquiring Konica Minolta AccurioLabel 190 roll-to-roll form machine in 2018.
Bhiwandi Based, Star Offset installed Konica Minolta AccurioLabel 190 roll-to-roll form machine in 2018. It was the first installation of AccurioLabel 190 in Western India.
After three and half years of the successful press run, Ajith Suvarna reviews the machine’s performance and his decision to install a Digital Press.
He says, “Our motive of installing the Digital Press was to service a specific set of customers for the short job and also to ease certain operations. It was a new experience for us because we never ever had a digital machine before. Initially, there were many challenges, and the first of them was the ‘cost’; no client is willing to pay you an extra cost for a label, even if it is printed on a high standard digital machine. Of course, due to the cooperation of Konica Minolta, we were able to standardise the market. The exceptional machine can also print just black, which in a way is helping us in printing barcodes and stickers. We never have to be bothered about the machine service and performance, as Konica Minolta has always taken care of any technical issues, the company resolves them within 24 to 36 hours. The color stock availability is also controlled by Konica Minolta remotely.”
“Any print job of below 500 running meters is advisable to print on a Digital Press. In contrast, print job of over 500 linear meters should be done on a conventional Flexo. If you have 6 to 8 color Flexo machine, we can do many jobs in a single pass like 5 Colour Printing, Varnishing, Foil Stamping, Slitting and Punching, etc. In most of the digital machines you can just print; varnishing, foil Stamping, etc., needs to be done offline.”
Speaking about his expectation from a Digital press, he said, “Konica Minolta should develop such a Digital Press where the first station should be a flexo 4 color, the second station should also be a flexo, and few more station for a job like foil stamping, varnishing, etc. Konica Minolta has already launched such machine in some part of the world but it is yet to be launch in India. If that is launch in India as well at a reasonable cost, it will be helpful and fuelling the growth of Indian printers and converters.”
“I have done research on a Digital equipment and found that machines which are above 5 crore rupees has advanced features like the flexibility in roll width selection, advance color options, high speed, substrate choices, etc. but there are few conditions like, you need to purchase color and other materials from the company, so eventually the cost of the print in those machines is even higher. On a digital press, we did jobs like barcode data printing, variable data printing, and all those jobs where 70% to 80% requirement is black or white.”
“Overall, our digital machine is complimenting and rewarding with conventional Flexo and we are happy about its performance. We are doing Digital printing, conventional Flexo printing and also Offset printing. We are surviving in the business because we are dynamic and have all the printing options; it would have been difficult to survive if you had one particular stream. We have all the quality standard certifications like ISO, FSC, GMI, Zadex.” Concludes Ajit.
