Samir Patkar, President – Heidelberg India, in an exclusive talk, discusses diverse subjects as the new model of working, customization, remote services, digital ecosystem, automation, recent installations, Push to Stop technology, OEE, Print Site Contracts, India is on the rise, with advanced print technology, AI, and more.
It’s been almost two years since COVID-19 went global. The unprecedented impact has created a crisis and thrown the world into disarray. Many industries got affected adversely, while some others were managed to be moderate and performed well. Speaking to PRESSIdeas, Samir Patkar, President, Heidleberg India notes: “The pandemic has changed the way we do business and has paved a new model of working – the print shop owners and industry colleagues were forced to change their market approach, business models and adapt to new business environments. The response had to be quick, measured and with highest agility.”
“While the pandemic affected business across all industry sectors, the graphic arts industry has not been any different,” observes Samir Patkar. “While commercial printing continues to be affected with slower recovery, fortunately, packaging printing is a growth story with increased print production in market sectors like pharmaceutical, healthcare & personal care, food & beverages, FMCG, and much more. The commercial printing is slowly recovering to pre-pandemic times, while packaging seems back on track with almost 80-90% recovery and in some cases even growing more than 100% of the pre-COVID business, we hope for a brighter 2022,” he says.
Speaking largely about the changes that would stay, Samir says, “As things are getting back to normal, in many sectors, work from home – WFH, will be commonly embraced. Speed of response and agility has become more important than before. Cash flow and margins will become more important parameters to drive businesses and will force all players in the supply chain to be focused to remain profitable and sustain the current challenging times. At Heidelberg, we are leveraging our digital processes to the fullest. As many of our presses are connected to cloud, our service team is helping our customers via remote to diagnose the machine fault and swiftly fix them remotely, thanks to digital technology and innovations which Heidelberg constantly brings to the market from time to time as a technology leader. This is going to be the new normal and most print companies are already following it. Let us remember that this is just one part of the digital transformation program which Heidelberg had drafted as its new journey 4 years ago.”
The changing market demands and customer expectations
The new print technologies have lowered costs and increased accuracy and offered quicker turnaround to customers. In the past, a company would purchase bulk order of marketing materials for any new product, but today’s technology allows them to customize their materials to connect with specific market segments. As a result, print companies can receive smaller orders and must have the capacity to address them efficiently.
Print markets used to be geographically defined, except for a few large printers. Today, a company’s market share is defined solely by its technology and willingness to cater to a broader customer base. More and more print companies are choosing to serve niche markets, finding that they can obtain a better profit margin by offering specialised services to a larger customer pool. In the past, inventory was straightforward since it focused primarily on basic paper products and standard inks. With different applications specific to different sectors along with changes in its variety and magnitude, one needs a very effective supply chain and inventory management to cater to print product customers’ specific needs. Vendor Managed Inventories, VMI or Just In Time, JIT deliveries, Track and Trace, are becoming more and more important. Just imagine when you can have one digital interface to manage this with your customers and suppliers – and this will be the future. It brings the line of visibility under one common digital workflow which allows business decisions to be taken well informed. This is the space where Heidelberg is already present and is further developing currently via their Prinect Workflow. “And, we are very excited about all these future developments!” states Samir.
“Today, customers want a customized design with specialty print and finishing and expect it to be available in short-time. With the rise of online shopping, purchasers now prefer digital order and fulfillment experience. As a result, web-to-print options have evolved from a luxury MIS add-on to a necessary service by a competitive print shop. Printers should manage a broader inventory base, possess excellent inventory management and have strong relationships with suppliers who can respond quickly to shifting needs,” explains Samir Patkar.
The future ways of providing the solutions at the best possible price
“The global printing market size is projected to grow and is expected to witness significant growth in the future due to increased demand for aesthetic printing solutions, higher consumer engagement for brand recognition, compliances and sustanability including better track and trace in industries, such as food and beverages, health & personal care and pharmaceutical,” foresees, Samir Patkar. “Moreover, rapid industrialization and growing manufacturing industries across the globe including Indian markets coupled with demographic advantage, growing disposable income and acceleration of industrial activities are likely to support the print market during the forecast period. FMCG, Food & Beverages and AlcoBev segment will continue to be volume drivers. With the pandemic recovering and relaxing of norms these businesses are likely to bounce back,” he further elucidates.
Samir also expects the customer service and support function to see radical changes in the coming years. “These changes will force service organizations to face multiple dilemmas around customers, strategy, organization, and technology. However, overcoming these dilemmas will prompt service to transform from a cost center to a customer centric approach which delivers the value its worth.
Customer service is the biggest influencer in terms of product experience. Heidelberg proves this by its recently introduced remote services. Under the easy and interactive Heidelberg Remote Services, their service team services the machines via the cloud, diagnoses problems faster and fixes most electrical errors quickly. This considerably reduces the downtime of customers and most importantly, decrease their stress level. “Indian businesses will transact more digitally, thanks to many government initiatives and a young India which also believes in the digital economy. Especially during lockdowns, many Indians saw immense benefit and convenience while transacting on digital platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, etc. Likewise, at Heidelberg, our initiative of introducing our e-shop platform is open for customers 24/7; where they can order the required spare parts and consumables at the click of a button. This is already a big success and is catching up a lot of momentum with Heidelberg customers worldwide including India. Our Indian customer base for e-shops is growing and shall be the most common platform to transact in the coming years,” informs Samir Patkar.
The changes that would stay
It’s inevitable that some industries and sectors will thrive, while others will decline; labels, mono-cartons and flexible packaging seem to be progressing better than many.
“The printshop owners must adapt to more and more digital processes for print operations and sales and marketing. One cannot be analog on their working style and hope to run the operations efficiently with better margins. Data mining and analytics are going to be the key to success for the future running of profitable print ecosystem. This will help to reduce waste, be more productive and profitable. In order to address the problem one need to know what the problem is. Data Mining and Analytics is the key to problem identification and solving them. It also helps one to benchmark their performance and set goals to constantly improve the new benchmarks set by the company. As an organization the one who embraces this process shall be early adopters and would have a better chance to be more successful…. It will be a cultural change!” suggests Samir Patkar.
Healthcare solutions are currently going through a sea of change in India and have already left back a long-lasting mark. Automation will maintain to grow in importance as it has over the last few years. The growth of smaller online retailers, startups, local brands, etc. will only continue to fuel the need for the short-run products offerings and the growth of the digital ecosystem will allow this to grow.
Covid Daredevils of Heidelberg
“When we look back, it’s astounding to see what all my colleagues at Heidelberg India have overcome together and the progress we’ve made since the onset of the pandemic with our field staff especially our sales and service team, whom we fondly call ‘Covid Daredevils’,” says Samir.
“Nevertheless, in any situation, we ensured that services and parts are taken care of without any hindrance and consumable deliverables are supplied to all customers. To add here, we have completed several installations across the country during the pandemic. The installations include Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor at Art -O-Print, Ahmedabad; Speedmaster CX 102 7+LUV presses at Miraj Multicolor, Udaipur, Noble Printing Press, Mumbai and Global Printing and Packaging in Bangalore; a Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor at Rohan Cards, Pune; CX 75 at Letap Ahmedabad, Print Point and Essentra, Bangalore. Speedmaster CS 92 installation at Rukson Packaging, Mumbai and two CS 92 presses installed at Rahul Print-o-Pack and Replika Press,” he adds.
Installations of SX 74 2P at Orient, Indore, SX 102 2P’s at Webtech and CD 102 6L UV at COPL Udaipur were also some of the highlights during the pandemic.
“Our service team has just completed a brand new Speedmaster SX 102 8P installation with Push to Stop technology, first time in India for book publishing and soon will hand over another newly launched Speedmaster CX 92 at Replika, Delhi. Both the presses were ordered at the peak time of second wave during April 2021. More presses are getting installed in the coming days,” reveals Samir.
In the label segment, three Gallus ECS 340 and two Labelmaster 440 flexo presses were installed. They have also completed the installation of several used Heidelberg presses. There is also a growing interest and installations happening in the pre-press segment with multiple installations of Suprasetter CtP equipment with Heidelberg’s signature Prinect Production Manager workflow at Galaxy Offset, Delhi; National Printers, Ranchi; Rajhans, Chennai; Subham Printers, Chennai; Assam Jaitya Bidyalaya, Guwahati; Ratna Paper, Chennai and many more.
In post-press, a good number of Polar cutting equipment were installed and their long-time customers like Nice Prints, Ramya Reprographics, and Noble Printing have installed MK Easymatrix die-cutters. “A few more Polar’s and die-cutters are on their way to India to get installed in the coming days. We see that our market acceptance as a reliable post-press partner is strongly growing with many customers placing repeat orders especially in die-cutters from MK,” affirms Samir.
“Our key focus remains on a customer-centric approach, and we want to give them a complete solution to increase their productivity, higher OEE, reduced downtime with higher profit margins,” he states.
The current situation for Heidelberg India, according to Samir, looks promising –with orders in place as more packaging converters invest in new equipment, they also launched their Print Site contracts in the last fiscal year, where they combine supply of consumables, Prinect Workflow –Pressroom/ Production Manager, preventive maintenance, and services on monthly basis as per the requirement, like a monthly subscription model of postpaid mobile connection, at mutually agreed terms and conditions.
Heidelberg team shall analyze the print shop’s production run, consumables, and service requirement; then offer a flexible contract package that starts from 6 to 60 months, which is seen as a stress-free model for any print shop owner. “It allows the printer to focus on getting more business while Heidelberg to focus on enhancing total productivity of the press with reduced downtimes. Selection of right consumables, workflow and consulting is also the key to achieve higher productivity which is offered via Print Site Contracts,” explains Samir.
This model is applicable also for any sheetfed press and Suprasetter equipment where they can get supply of consumables and services at a special price. This model is impressive and many printers in India have already opted for these contracts from Heidelberg.
Packaging Printing is a success story in India
“We are fortunate that India is still an emerging market which means we have a huge demand for all consumer goods for the next 10 years and more. The per-capita consumption of self adhesive labels in India is just below 0.6 square meters per annum while the Asian Average is over 6 square meter/annum, North America and Europe being over 10 square meters/annum. The per capita paper board consumption in India is currently 12-14 kgs/annum while the global average is about 57 kgs/annum. With over 1.3 billion population and demographic advantage of 50% of population being young, our GDP forecasted stand at over 7.5% for next two quarters of FY 22 and beyond. As one of the fastest growing economies, I am confident that packaging printing is going to be a success story in India, whether it is mono-cartons, labels, or flexible packaging, India is on the rise!” claims Samir.
“Domestic consumption has been and will be the key to packaging growth. With the revival of exports, many of our top customers equipped with the latest technology to compete in the global market, will be the key drivers of high growth once the pandemic curve begins to flatten. Most speak of V shape recovery for our economy and with the GDP projected at 7.5%, the coming years look very promising for India, especially for the graphic arts industry. I see this would be our best chance for India to propel growth and make its mark in world production of goods and services…. This is our time and we need to make the most of it,” he insists.
Signs of revival in the commercial printing segment
Undoubtedly commercial printing suffered the most during the pandemic times. The disruption is seen a lot more in commercial printing due to faster adoption of technologies in the Web and Digital which shifted from the traditional Sheetfed Offset. With schools shut for a long time and most learning platforms converted online along with drop in marketing activities from corporates in advertising/marketing spend, we can say that the commercial segment suffered the most. “We do see signs of revival in commercial segments with the industry now opening and marketing budgets by corporates now being spent. Schools and educational institutes are also slated to start again any time now of course with the hope that we don’t get attacked by more pandemic waves. Just as we talk we have the new Omicron wave and the world seems to have panicked again. This will be a push and pull story and a battle of nerves and will test us all the way. Only the calm and composed and focused shall win. We have just installed a Speedmaster SX 102 8P with our latest ‘Push to Stop’ technology excelled by Prinect Software, first time in India for the commercial segment, and our newly launched Speedmaster CX 92 four colour press goes to one of our strong partners in North India, Replika Press,” says Samir. “We are very excited with these installations!”
Besides, there are growing demands and growth being observed in specialized packaging segments especially Lamitubes, Shrink Sleeves, and In Mould Labels, IML. “I feel the time is now for India to start printing IML labels by Sheetfed Offset as the demand is growing and the printed costs are much lower as compared to any other print technologies,” recommends Samir. We have just showcased in October 21 our latest cost effective technologies with our Speedmaster CX 75 for IML printing.
Heidelberg in India – future strategy and core target areas
Heidelberg’s new generation presses with fully automated processes supported by the state-of-the-art Prinect software, digital platforms to do business like e-shop, remote connectivity of their presses to be a part of Heidelberg Cloud, Print Site contracts with right choice of consumables to run the presses efficiently with highest productivity will be the target areas. “With our motto ‘Always a Step Ahead,’ we think and foresee for customer’s productivity and technology enhancement constantly,” says Samir.
We see that the customer’s expectations are changing rapidly and there is a growing focus on OEE and higher operating efficiencies. Tomorrow’s technology needs to be supported well with the right ecosystem that allows all functions to operate at the highest potential including the skills of the press operators. “There are rapid changes in business models and growing need for data analytics in driving well informed business decisions. This holds for both Heidelberg as well as our customers. We are rapidly aligning in these areas to ensure customer profitability by constantly upgrading our resources and skills and I see great progress already. More modern techniques towards data mining and digitalization of processes shall help us to the built speed of response for faster and more precise decision making,” envisages Samir.
The latest offerings
“Our all-new Speedmaster 2020 generation presses combine top performance with artificial intelligence features and a revolutionary operating concept which no other printing press generation did before,” declares Samir. “Customers can discover the performance spectrum and intelligent capabilities afforded by automation and digitization – like the new Intelliline LED-based navigation support system, which provides a colour visualization of the process status of all printing, coating, and drying units always. The uniform and intuitive Heidelberg UX operator guidance make printing more exciting.”
He also delightedly announces the installation milestone of 1000 print units of their newly launched Speedmaster CX 104, which premiered in June at China Print 2021. The press is manufactured at their Shanghai factory and has been very popular globally.
“I am also happy to announce that the Speedmaster CX 104 have also gained a lot of popularity in India and a few are on their way,” rejoices Samir.
Currently, Heidelberg is promoting its Speedmaster CX 92 and CX 104 presses in the market even as the company launches several offers for Prinect, spares, and consumable business. “We soon plan to be at our usual drill of being present at exhibitions and conducting seminars,” states Samir.
Advanced print technology has a far-fetched future
Samir expects the printing market to witness notable growth in about five years. “Advanced print technology has a far-fetched future, embracing innovative media and communication that go beyond imagination. Most of the leading printing companies are adapting to innovative ways and adopting digital printing technology for customization,” he says.
“Digital print technology is, of course, faster and can also render designs much more intricate than print professionals could have accomplished in the recent past, even with short runs, varying surface finishes can now be printed on the same project, and three-dimensional graphic designs can be printed with more realistic depth. These creative possibilities allow designers to put together eye-catching projects with fewer limitations than they would have found with Offset printing,” he continues.
“Despite the fast pace of technological innovation, print and packaging businesses do not have to switch to purely Digital presses overnight. Since Offset still has its strength over Digital, especially with Heidelberg’s solutions in technologies like the Anicolor and Push to Stop suited for short-run production, special colours, metallic and Pantone shades, Multicolour Printing, varied substrate, high-quality printing with custom finish and colour fidelity, they can instead leverage more from the Offset processes today,” emphasizes Samir.
Also, one good example is the Gallus Label Fire 340, Hybrid digital press. The press combines the latest digital printing technology with printing processes like Digital Inkjet Printing seven colours with inkjet white, Flexo and Screen printing, In line intermittent die-cutting, digital foiling and varnishing, multilayers and much more all IN LINE; and at speeds of 70 meters/minute, it is just raising the bar in label printing. The digital in-line label printing system features a print module with state-of-the-art inkjet print heads and prints at a resolution of 1200 x 1200 dpi native.
“Heidelberg has always been a leading technology and solutions provider. With our Speedmaster 2020 generation series, we offer the most highly automated and most intelligent presses,” says Samir speaking about the superiority of Heidelberg presses.
“The smart machine advantage is a huge spectrum of possibilities for outstanding productivity and significant increase in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). This ensures the lowest printed cost and with the highest quality and productivity. A core thing that any entrepreneur is looking for is a better return on investment. At Heidelberg, we walk the talk!” he says.
The Speedmaster CX 104 boasts a new, ergonomic design with excellent accessibility and offers a completely new operating philosophy (Heidelberg UX), together with a whole host of assistance systems like Wash Assistant and Color Assistant Pro, and Prinect Press Centre XL3 control for easy navigation. To ensure makeready times are always kept short, the patented Intellistart 3 system automatically determines the makeready processes required for the jobs to be produced.
The Intellistart 3 feature initiates the makeready process and carries it out automatically. Intelliguide and the Intelliline colour-controlled LED elements on the printing and coating units tell operators the press’s operating status at any given time and indicate any manual intervention that is required. The newly developed Intellirun software takes operator navigation beyond the makeready process, providing a preview of several planned jobs.
Heidelberg Healthy Printing Initiative
By joining the international Healthy Printing initiative, Heidelberg is underlining this comprehensive commitment to environment-friendly products and technologies. Healthy and sustainable printing is increasingly becoming a competitive advantage. Demand for safe and recyclable print products is growing, particularly in packaging printing. “As a leading partner to the folding carton industry, we support recyclability which makes an important contribution to an efficient circular economy and thus strengthens the competitiveness of the printing and the packaging industry. Heidelberg has been committed to sustainability in the production of print products for many years as we are the world’s only press manufacturer that offers the service to offset CO2 in the production of all presses from Heidelberg ex-works. The machine guards of CO 2 -neutral presses carry a special label. Print products produced on CO2-neutral presses from Heidelberg can be labeled with a logo. In the future, the commitment to climate protection can be a factor that is decisive for the growth of your business,” says Samir.
In absence of industry exhibitions, the new way of showing the equipment for Heidelberg has been the starting of Innovation Week event since 2020. The event showcases live sessions, technical discussions on various topics from commercial to packaging, pre-press workflow to label printing, service topics to consumable know-how.
“Visitors explored the Heidelberg portfolio and got interesting updates on the Heidelberg products ranging from folding cartons, commercial and label production, artificial intelligence to a wide range of digital service offerings. This trend will continue in the coming years and all the virtual events are made available in the cloud for the printing fraternity,” shares Samir.
“It is time for us to think out-of-the-box, stay strong and bring our resilient spirit to the fore. Let’s take all the positive learnings from 2020 & 2021 and strengthen them in 2022,” he encourages.
“In another aspect, our business management has changed for the better. Consolidation, Cashflow Management, Profitability, Modernization, Digitization, and Automation are going to be the keywords from now on. Let us embrace the change which is the need of the hour to get into the next phase of our lives where AI will play a major role in all aspects. On behalf of Team Heidelberg India, I wish all our print industry friends a happy and prosperous new year 2022,” concludes Samir Patkar.
