The recent Heidelberg machine is a 25x37inch customized SX102 8-colour perfector model.
It was towards the end of May 2019 when we visited Rahul Print O Pack to witness the 64 million impressions machine count on their Heidelberg CX 92 in just 14 months from the day of installation. That was one of the highest productivity figures attained by a printer in India then. Later in June 2022, while Mr.Rahul Soni, owner of Rahul Print O Pack, was a participant at the Navigating Print Business conference at Dwarka near Delhi he told the author about covid and its aftermath thus “If we truly embrace ‘empathy’ rather than using it as a buzzword, we will be able to understand the needs of all stakeholders well and act accordingly.” Empathy based actions, he said, trumps all situations no matter how adverse the same may be and that is exactly what sailed them through that bad patch. These two aspects of Rahul Print O Pack basically summarise its foundation and are the main reasons for their unprecedented growth over the last five years or so.
Recently we had the opportunity to visit them on the successful installation of their 4th brand new Heidelberg, a customised Heidelberg SX102 (25×37 inches size) 8 colour perfector model. This is in addition to three more four colour Heidelberg machines in their stable. At a time when commercial printing is on the downturn with all the digital onslaught that we witness, Rahul Print O Pack seems to be rising like a phoenix and flying high.
“All the machines on our shop floor are basically of the same size and so we do not have to face the constant challenge of scheduling a job on any particular machine per se. Every job of ours can run on any of our machines,” Rahul said.
Rahul’s father Mr.Ajay Soni, initially a freelancer for publishing houses in Delhi, founded Rahul Print O Pack in 1998 when it became almost impossible to handle the pressures of outsourcing printing. Since then there has been no turning back. “Dad was rather vehement in having only new machines in their premises since it takes away the production issues faced by a 2nd hand machine and we can focus on our core activity of servicing our publisher clients,” affirms Rahul.
Today, Rahul Print O Pack prints the jackets, the covers as well as the inside pages on their Heidelberg machines and are extremely satisfied customers of Heidelberg. They also have their Suprasetter prepress from Heidelberg and are in the process of installing the Prinect Production Workflow system. “This is supposed to automate our production, colour and quality management while also providing key data for analyses and reporting for a smart workflow to get best out of the whole setup, be it prepress, press or postpress,” beams Rahul. As on date they process about 48 plates an hour during the peak season.
Though the company does not have any immediate plans to get into packaging as yet, they feel that this size of the machines enables them to cater to almost all needs of the FMCG & Pharma industry. “Even if today we have to get into packaging printing, we would be able to cater to almost 80% of FMCG needs and almost all needs of the pharma industry as far as their printing needs are concerned,” he says.
On a retrospective thought Rahul feels that the eight colour perfector is the machine for catering to the publishers and given a choice he would want to have more of them at their shop floor. “With minimal manpower, we are able to turn around a much higher volume of printed sheets,” says Rahul. Taking a feather from our question to him of venturing into packaging, Rahul informed us that almost 30% of their revenue today is from the packaging of the books which is done on duplex board. “Today our publisher needs us to pack a set of books in a box to sell as a combo or a set which appeals to a particular section of their customers. Therefore, we do the packing too for them which in fact turns out to be a better business proposition for us,” beams Rahul.
Convenience is the key word today to one and all and publishers are no different. They are looking for suppliers who can be a one-stop-shop for all their needs. And, Rahul has made it a point to cater to all their needs be it packaging, providing die cut flash cards, packets for flash card, activity books, sticker books etc. all of which is designed as well as printed in-house at Rahul Print O Pack. “Though a bit complicated and involves manual interventions, such activities add to our bottom line in a very positive manner and so it will only be increasing more as a share of our business revenue,” he added.
Rahul Print O Pack has a production capability of about 50,000 paperbacks each day which they expect to increase since they added a perfect binder from Bindwel and 3 more Aster sewing machines last year. They are planning consolidation by acquiring land in the outskirts of Delhi and also planning to enter the exports arena directly. “A complete Polar cutting system is also on our radar at the new unit which can feed a shift of 12 hours for five Heidelberg printing machines,” confided Ajay.
Talking of support from Heidelberg over the years Ajay said “We have had excellent support from Heidelberg India all these years and each investment is meticulously planned by the Heidelberg team from import to the installation. Their technical expertise is excellent and hence we rely on Heidelberg solutions” commented Ajay Soni. Meanwhile, Harish Gogia, Cluster Sales Head (North & East), Heidelberg India, commented, “The new Speedmaster SX 102 comes with updated design solutions and the new gallery provides easy access, and improved operator ergonomics without any need of additional space. And most importantly, the size format is perfectly suited for commerical and packaging segment, with lot of cost saving in plate production.”