Condot Systems showcases security printing and personalization solutions along with their latest solutions for the printing industry. We met Jigish Chiniwala, MD who spoke in detail about Condot’s key highlights and Printpack experience.
Condot Systems, established in year 1994, has made a mark in the business of Coding and Marking with its state-of-the-art-solutions, today not only complying ISO 9001 / 27001 / GMP standards but also serving customers across the world through 38 overseas and 13 Indian locations. A strong team of 87 people with rich average experience of more than 10 years’ association with company, serves a common philosophy – to explore beyond limits, understand market demands and provide solutions that increase customer satisfaction that creates a lasting bond with them.
Condot operates in 13 location in India and 38 Countries of Asia Pacific and Africa with key area of operation being Printing, Packaging and Software – with 80% of total requirements being manufactured in house. Their business portfolio is Coding Marking & VDP Printing, Track and Trace, Vision Inspection and related software. The business interest extends to Security Printing, VDP, Read Print and Verification, Coding and Marking and such application with total solution that includes customized and personalized ones as per individual need.
At the recently concluded Printpack India exhibition, Condot was a participant. “PrintPack India is grand show and our key attraction in the show was made in India machines which we used to import in the past,” says Jigish Chiniwala, MD, Condot Systems. “But now they are built in India, especially Dry Offset, Slitter Re-winders, UV Systems, Matrix Removal, Hologram Strip Applicators, Security Printing equipment’s. These all were our new key attractions in the show,” he adds.
Jigish is happy about the industry’s response at Printpack. “Industry response was good – at Condot booth we had quality visitors and very well appreciated footfall with quite focused visitor turnaround. We welcomed more interested customers who were or wanted to venture in Security or personalisation printing,” he shares.
Condot had a total exhibit area of 90 square meters at the 15th Printpack India. The showcase highlights included live demo of Security Printing, Authentication Software and many other machines. “The customers who were planning for customer loyalty program, brand protection program or customer retention program along with security printers showed a great interest in our products,” says Jigish.
“As we were focusing on security printing and generating awareness towards printing especially centering around our new customer loyalty program, brand protection program and customer retention program, we hope Indian printers will show as much interest as they did with TIJ. We brought TIJ technology in India in 2004 and saw a great enthusiasm in printers in accepting it against traditional numbering boxes,” continues Jigish.
Condot with Seiko and Kao: Robust solutions for high speed, high resolution and data management needs
What makes Condot’s Seiko and Kao solutions just irreplaceable are their strength in combining speed with resolution, harsh environment sturdiness as well as data management.
Condot’s association with Seiko is relatively new. “Our experience with Seiko has been very encouraging – Seiko is very supportive in our all development programs. Without Seiko support it wouldn’t have been possible for Condot to develop our first machine so fast. It is only because of their support that we are a recognized name in DOD solutions where we got established in a very short time too,” emphasizes Jigish.
Speaking about the printheads, he says, “Seiko print heads are a top choice – they are known for their reliability, sturdiness and effortless performance. We have done some very difficult installations too – like 135 meters per minute UV curable ink at 50 degree Centigrade and full coverage of 70mm machine. These installations along with many others are running as smoothly in such harsh environments as they would in any other environment. They are running without any service call! Then we did Vertical Printing on a shipper from both the sides. During this project, sometimes the shipper would rub against the print head. Still, neither did we miss any nozzle nor skip the perfect quality of the required 2D bar code,” proudly acclaims Jigish. Surely, such proven difficult installations with flawless performance record have made it easier for Condot customers to take the decision in their favour.
Similarly, Condot and Kao have been working together for a fairly long time – since 2005 and they have worked together on TIJ & DOD Inks of different varieties. “Our business association is not restricted to India but we offer Kao inks in many countries of Asia and Africa,” informs Jigish.
Condot and Seiko offer 70mm to 560mm stitch less printing, 8 level grey scale printing, UV and Oil based ink for porous and non-porous substrate. Years of association with Condot and their service is an assurance of quality for their customers.
The strength of Condot solutions to take up challenges of harsh environments today makes them a distinct name in the TIJ sphere in India. “With our quality and standard and commitment to serve customer with most efficient products with less down time, we offer best ROI and top class DOD products. Solutions for the difficult and challenging environment bring us success,” says Jigish.
How many can print VDP with security?
Condot always offers something different and innovative; they are just not inkjet printers. Explaining this Jigish says, “We are very clear even in promotion. Everyone can print VDP but how many can print VDP with security? We provide required integration software solution build on 21CFR and data handling system with VDP to keep our customers a step ahead of other and to fetch better business.”
Customization is an everyday chore at Condot Systems. The solutions are mostly customized as per individual needs. “For us every solution is customized since we provide solution on almost all press and post press equipment like Web Offset (Narrow Web / Wide Web / News Paper Web), Flexo, Rotogravure, Folding machine, Lamination machines, different type of Winder and un winders, Slitter, Sheeters etc. Not only on different transport, but we also provide customized solutions on Variable data printing, Vision inspection as well as required software for data management,” informs Jigish.
At the Printpack India 2022 Condot had a lot of positive leads and encouraging discussions with existing as well as prospective customers. The months following would be the time to take them further for the company and its team. “To convert the positive outcome of Printpack to orders would follow normal sales cycle depending on the complexity of each project,” says Jigish looking forward to coming months.
“Since our focus is on niche requirements of the printing industry, our visitors too usually have very unique demands. We had good visitors with focused approach and we are quite happy about the same,” he adds.
Since they are more towards creating awareness on security printing, theirs is not a volumes business. Jigish calls Condot’s Printpack participation a success.
The industry post Covid
“Looking at current situation after prolonged Covid period, it sound harsh but, the fact is more digitisation and online working practice will be difficult for conventional printers,” says Jigish. “Unless printers think out of the box for personalisation, do short run with more security features and say, associate with digital media they may not find grow easy today; if they are not ready with such solutions they will have difficult time in future,” analyses Jigish.
Hit by economic crisis, supply & demand, material shortage and similar issues, most of the industry segments suffered, especially in terms of investment decisions lately. Speaking on the present situation and future opportunities, Jigish elaborates, “Of course there are temporary issues with supply chain and inflation, but people who are doing new out of box solutions are doing good. Under ‘Make in India’ we are getting great support from the Indian Govt. to develop better and different solutions and export them. Even in the Printing Industry, digitisation, short run press, security printing, personalisation printing, track and trace in packaging industry are fast growing markets. But I reiterate that standard printers will have more difficult time ahead.”
He looked pleased about his Printpack experience save for a few things like Noida being an ideal location for the exhibition. “Since most of the printers are owner based companies, when they want to visit exhibition across India, they prefer better connectivity,” he says.
Government support, according to Jigish, is crucial for the revival and growth of the industry. “Government should have some program for machine manufacturers in the Printing Industry especially for innovative digital technology in printing since that is the future and we should be ready for the same,” he suggests.
Other thing was there were fewer international visitors this time. “We were surprised international visitors were very few and that too from very near countries only,” observes Jigish and authoritatively so as Condot Systems has a strong international presence, operating in 38 countries.
Apart from these, the May climate of the region is in no way conducive for travel, visit and stay which surely would have affected the Printpack business. “It is not good for visitors specially experienced and people with established businesses avoid such climate for exhibition visit,” affirms Jigish.
Speaking about the Condot solutions for different shapes of material, he says, “Different shape means 2D and not 3D – most of the time we do not come across such applications except labels and we have no problem to handle any shape since most of the demand comes on flexo.”
Condot has more than 10,000 successful installations in Printing Industry of India. Condot is surely known for their reliability and service for which they have been a preferred choice for their wide customer base. “Most of customers who are printing VDP, now understand the requirements and they only decide on print heads as per requirements and economics. With Condot solutions many printers are using our printers since 2004. For all our customers Condot is a name for reliability and service,” emphasizes Jigish.
The key attraction of Printpack India 2022, according to Jigish, is the short run printers which he also calls the future of the industry.
“All in all, the exhibition was organised in a good way looking at the situation and time. But if they could do it at appropriate location, looking at proper connectivity and time, joined hands with exhibitions like Paperex then it could have been altogether different,” he sums up.
“Just printing a VDP will no longer make our printers grow. To grow, Indian printers have to think Printing with security and verification. Solutions have to be more software driven or interlinked with your customer supply chain. Unless printers provide the solution to their customers for their pain areas like, for example, how to resolve the problem of duplication, or how to remove spurious from the supply chain, how to retain the customers, customer loyalty program etc., no printer or packing company can grow in the long run. Condot is a partner for your innovative requirements,” concludes Jigish Chiniwala.
