Covid-19 impacts global print events industry adversely!

Covid-19 impacts global print events industry adversely!

Covid-19 or Corona virus that has struck populations in countries across the globe creating a scare that has impacted adversely most affluent economies in the world. Governments are taking very strong measures to curb the proliferation as also find remedies for curing and containing this virus which is already declared a pandemic. Increasing numbers of affected people and deaths have created an alarming situation whereby vast geographical areas are being cordoned off, schools are shut, travel has become restricted, congregation of people is being restricted and businesses are suffering. The global printing industry at large is also facing the brunt of the impact. Important printing events where major buying decisions are taken and seminars that enhance knowledge besides providing networking opportunities have been postponed. Millions have been invested in planning the event by the event organisers, exhibitors and the visitors. Some of the important events that have taken responsible decisions to postpone in view of public safety concerns are as below.

Sri Lanka Print 2020 Colombo
FINAT Technical Seminar Barcelona
Labelexpo SEA Bangkok
LMAI Digital Label printing event Mumbai

PackPlus South 2020 Hyderabad India
Interpack Dusseldorf Germany
Drupa Dusseldorf Germany
FESPA Brazil 2020 Sao Paolo
Fespa Global Print Expo 2020 Madrid
FINAT European Label Forum 2020, Rome is under consideration

The label industry has been greatly impacted by the spreading virus. China and Italy are two major producers and suppliers of label manufacturing equipment, both countries have been hit badly. Covid-19 originated in China and Italy became one of the largest sufferers of this spreading pandemic with tremors of this being felt by label printers across the globe. Even though China has indicated containment of the virus at their end yet since the virus has spread to other countries, governments around the world continue to make travel advisories and entry restrictions to contain the spread in their respective countries.

These travel restrictions or self-control in avoiding travel has greatly impacted the events business. With news of Covid-19 spreading to Spain; FINAT, the European association for the self-adhesive label industry postponed their FINAT Technical Seminar Barcelona. According to Chris Ellison, President of FINAT “Apart from the public health risk, the virus is now also spilling over into the real economy, and members of the label industry are taking measures to contain the risk for their staff’s well-being and their business’ continuity. In some cases, more far-reaching measures are taken than those recommended or enforced by local governments and public health institutes.” He further adds, “We are also reviewing the scenarios for the European Label Forum in Rome next June”.

Tarsus which was looking forward to a successful second Labelexpo southeast Asia at Bangkok has also announced its postponement. According to Lisa Milburn, managing director of Labelexpo Global Series, “We have taken the difficult decision to postpone Labelexpo Southeast Asia 2020 in May due to coronavirus/COVID-19.

This is an unprecedented situation and given the vast amount of preparation that goes into our shows, not a decision we have taken lightly. However, the health and safety of our exhibitors, visitors and staff is our top priority, and working on the advice of our local partners and BITEC, we feel the best course of action is to postpone the show until September.” 

Drupa is the world’s leading trade fair for printing technologies. The last Drupa saw 1828 exhibitors from 54 countries, 260,165 visitors from 183 countries with the largest group from outside Germany coming from India totaling at 5% of the total visitors.  

Until a few days back the Drupa website stated that the event will be held on the stipulated dates and that the organisers were taking adequate steps to screen the visitors as also to sanitize the venue for safety of all. Then on 13th of March 2020 came the press release from Messe Dusseldorf stating that both Drupa and Interpack are postponed. 

A resilient Indian label industry has had its own share of voes over the past few years. Every time it is faced with a challenging situation it recovers to face yet another tough situation. First came the demonetization, hardly had the effect of that had worn off came the implication of GST.

The industry took its time to reconcile and adjust itself on to a growth path but as 2019 was coming to an end the country was facing an economic slowdown stemming the rate of growth. The resilience of this industry segment still makes it go on, sometimes rapidly and other down at a slower pace. Now the Corona virus has brought with it a new kind of situation whereby travel is curtailed, and expansions have gone on hold. With the Indian label industry starting its move in to digital label printing in line with trends in the western world, India’s label association LMAI had planned its 2nd event, “”DIGITAL PRINTING IN LABELS – THE WAY FORWARD” to be held in the evening of March 16th, 2020 at Hotel ITC Maratha Mumbai. The interest in the event got a huge response and was fully sold out two weeks in advance. As the situation of Corona Virus became alarming the LMAI management decided to postpone the event. Amit Sheth founder member of LMAI requesting postponement had said, “The way it is seen it is better to postpone the event. I think this is a National concern!” Commenting on the cancellation Kuldip Goel President LMAI said, “It is so unfortunate that immense effort had gone in preparation but for a humanitarian cause, it was needed to take precaution.!”

While the corona virus goes on unabated it is hoped that the containment happens soon bringing relief to the vast humanity that has got affected. While efforts go on by health authorities globally to find a vaccine, yet it is prudent for all to practice safety as suggested by bonafide governments and certified health authorities.

TLWritten by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Ltd. New Delhi India March 2020

LMAI Conference Kochi- knowledge, bonding, and celebrations par excellence!

LMAI Conference Kochi- knowledge, bonding, and celebrations par excellence!
LMAI Board of directors


The 3-day LMAI label conference from 25th-27th July 2019 was an event that was efficiently organized and delivered the promise of comradeship, entertainment and knowledge sharing. From the time of landing at Kochi to the time of departures on 28th, it was all done with clockwork precision. It was a gigantic task of hosting over 550-600 delegates from all over India and various parts of the world attending this biennial event. They were put up in 317 rooms spread across 3 hotels The Bolgatty Grand Hyatt, The Marriot and The Taj. The event was held at Grand Hyatt, perched on 26 acres of plush green land on the serene Bolgatty Island, Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty is a waterfront urban resort overlooking the backwaters of Vembanad Lake.

After a smooth check-in and registrations, the delegates reassembled for start of conference. 

It all started with traditional lighting of the lamp.

Welcome address by Kuldeep Goel President LMAI followed next.

Pankaj Bhardwaj Senior Director and General Manager Avery Dennison delivered the thought-provoking keynote address, setting the tone of the conference. Pankaj, while referring to the growing Indian market mentioned, “Diminishing divide between urban-rural population in India and an aspiring middle class means a growing demand of consumer products and also label”.

Due to a delayed flight, special guest Lisa Milburn Managing Director Labelexpo Group UK could not reach in time to deliver her address and in her absence, Pradeep Saroha country manager Labelexpo spoke to update the audience about the forthcoming Labelexpo Europe in Brussels, it being the 40th anniversary of Labelexpo additional features included will be on sustainability, flexible packaging, digital printing and a host of other technologies.

Manish Desai Conference chairman spoke on the flow of events at the conference.

Shahidi Ainain Director SIES School of packaging who was moderator for the event gave the guidelines to be followed while making presentations and advised speakers on the need for time management.

The audience dispersed to re-assemble again later for welcome dinner with Thallaavia theme.

L to R: Ajay Mehta, Amit Sheth, Dinesh Mahajan, Raveendran, Harveer Sahni
Pankaj Bhardway-Avery, Kuldip Goel, Rajesh Nema, Sandeep Zaveri,
Vivek Kapoor, Ramesh Deshpande and Amar Chhajed

The conference being held in Kerala, it was an imperative to give it a local theme on the very first evening. All the Board of Directors of LMAI and Committee members dressed up in the local Malayali traditional dress, giving the evening a local celebratory touch. After felicitation of sponsors by committee members and their walk on the ramp there was Carnatic band playing, networking and dinner.

A surprise announcement was made for bestowing upon Amit Sheth of Label Planet and Intergraphic a lifetime award for contribution to the Indian Label Industry! After an emotional thank you speech, Amit walked the ramp with wife Rupa and their two daughters.

Next day after breakfast the audience reassembled for a busy day full of presentations by eminent sponsors and of very high standards. Past President Vivek Kapoor’s welcome address was followed by presentation by Manoj KM and Parag Bagade of Avery Dennison. While Manoj spoke on futuristic labelstock offerings, Parag spoke on the sustainability endeavours by Avery including collection and recycling of liner and self-adhesive waste.

Presentations made were as follows;
Avery Dennison India, Manoj KM and Parag Bagade, “Emerging Technology & Sustainability”Pulisi Technology, Olive Liu, “Relationship between Technology and Life”SMI Coated Products: Ajay Mehta and Rohit Mehta, “Technical Aspects of Applications of Label Stock Solutions”Domino Printech India: David Ellen, “Advantages of HYBRID systems for labels and Packaging converters”Vinsak India: Ranesh Bajaj, “Future Based Solutions”Retail Solution and Technologies: T. R. Ravishankar, “Trends in Barcoding and Enterprise Mobility”WEIGANG: Spring Xu, “Features enhancing to choose a good flexo machine”Luster LightTech Group: Carrie Duan, “Mining your potential”Nilpeter India: Manish Kapoor, Indian Label Indusrty – “The question of Scale and Scalability”Insight Print Communications: Ajay Aggarwal, “Transition to Digital – Now and for Future”Loparex: Manish Jain, “Future Sustainability”Heidelberg and Gallus: Samir Patkar, “The Power of 2 – when conventional meets digital (hybrid technology)”DuPont Advanced Printing: Shyamal Desai, “End user benefits”Flint Group India: Shailesh Kumar Sharma, “New Gen Color Management”HP India Sales: Appadurai, “Future is Now”BOBST Firenze SRL: Ludovico Frati, “Connectivity”Dragon Foils – Inter Films India: Raymond Lu, “Innovation and frontier of cold foil technology”

Two interactive and knowledge imparting Panel Discussions moderated by LMAI Board member Harveer Sahni of Weldon Celloplast were held after lunch. The first one was with printers where the topic was, “Creating the future vs embracing the future”.

Panelists included Priyata Raghavan Sai Security Printers, Tejas Tanna of Printmann, Aaditya Kashyap of Marksfine, Mahendra Shah of Renault Paper, Shakti Jain of Great Eastern IDTech, Yudhviram Solanki of Sicon Packs and Anurag Mohan of Interact.

The second Panel discussion was with industry suppliers as panelists and titled, “Evolving trends in Labels manufacturing!” Eminent suppliers who were in the panel and gave thought provoking inputs included;

Bhupinder Singh of Avery Dennison, Samir Patkar of Heidelberg Gallus, Appa Durai of HP, Ranesh Bajaj of Vinsak, Pawandeep Sahni of Omet, Manish Kapoor of Nilpeter, Prasenjit Das of Dupont and Sreenivas Goud of Flint. Time being a constraint the audience wished there was more time for these engaging discussions but since the schedule for the conference was so packed that there was no room for extension

After the day’s presentations ended, there was an excellent talk sponsored by SMI and Pulisi on “Secrets of Impactful Success” by motivational Guru, Gaur Gopal Das which left a full packed hall of almost 600 people spellbound and in awe of what he delivered. 

The evening ended with yet another program sponsored by SMI and Pulisi, a musical performance by the visually impaired performers from the National Organisation of Disabled Artists. They sang old Bollywood songs so well that it left the audience full of awe and at that moment, compassion turned into joy, watching their special abilities to deliver so well to a large audience.

The label printing fraternity was up on its feet and on to the dance floor enjoying the renderings of this awesome group. Towards the end, the President LMAI on behalf of his team announced an additional sum of Rupees one lakh over and above what they had contracted for.

This was followed by many in the audience committing large sums to support the social cause of encouraging disabled artists.

On the final day after a welcome address more presentations as mentioned below followed;

Apex Asia Pacific: Carl Brock, “Nothing short of revolution in flexographic printing”Flexo Image Graphics: Ian Pollock, “Future of Printing Technology”ROGLER International Sàrl: Hannes Rogler, “Future based solution”Multitec Aids: Amit Ahuja, “Life beyond labels”RotoMetrics: Cain Harper, “It’s about more than the die”Brotech Digital Graphics: Ramon Lee, “The future of hybrid printing and finishing”GEW: Marcus Greenbrook, “Upcoming Technology”Numex Blocks: Supachai Theravithayangkura, “Innovative Flexo Plate Solutions for Narrow Web Printing”JN Arora presentation

A panel discussion jointly hosted and moderated by Ajay Mehta of SMI Coated papers and Amit Sheth of Pulisi Technology was conducted with young panelists that included Hemanth Paruchuri of Pragati Pack, Vidur Agarwal of Veekay Industries,

Krishh Chhatwal of Kwality Offset, Denver Annunvciation of Janus International and Naveen Goel of Any Graphics titled “Young printer’s perception on future of label industry”

After the presentations concluded that afternoon it was time for a “Sadhya” typical of that area. Sadhya in local language Malyalam is a feast of Hindu origin and of importance to Hindu Malayalis, consisting of a variety of traditional vegetarian dishes usually served on a banana leaf in Kerala, India.

Sadhya means banquet in Malayalam. It is a vegetarian feast prepared by both men and women, especially when needed in large quantities, for weddings and other special events. Sadhya is typically served as a traditional dish for Onam, the state festival of Kerala. It was a feast for the eyes to see, a diverse gathering Indians and foreigners relishing the local cuisine and eating with bare hands.

Past president Sandeep Zaveri updated the audience about the next program of Round tables, the interaction between sponsors and Printers.

“Round tables” program with all sponsors attending to a rotating groups of label printers was a much-appreciated part of this conference. 

It gave the sponsors opportunity to interact with existing and prospective customers. This program was highly appreciated by the sponsors.

The final evening sponsored by Avery Dennison was themed “The Great Gatsby!”. 

American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional towns of West Egg and East Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. Fitzgerald—inspired by the parties he had attended while visiting Long Island’s North Shore—began planning the novel in 1923,

desiring to produce, in his words, “something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned.” In the novel the character Gatsby throws very extravagant, excessive parties with hundreds of guests, all for the purpose to attract a lady’s attention. The evening had the settings of the 1920s.

The evening began with a vote of thanks by LMAI treasurer Dinesh Mahajan of Prakash Labels.

It was then time for SMI Managing Director Ajay Mehta’s talented daughter Nikita Mehta who trained in the USA and is all set to go professional in the Indian singing arena, to go on stage and give a melodious heartwarming singing performance.

Finally, while people enjoyed photo ops and networking over drinks.

Bollywood singer Nakash Aziz took the stage while the LMAI conference delegates hit the dance floor and enjoyed the fun until late in the night.

Credit goes to Hemal Bhagwat who heads the event management company Mercury Integrated along with her husband and a dedicated team. “Thank you Hemal for making this a memorable event, memories will linger on till it is time to plan yet another better and bigger LMAI CONFERENCE”

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi July 2019

Magazines are free to reproduce by giving credit to author.

History of Indian Label Industry Part-2A

History of Indian Label Industry Part-2A

At the last, Indian label industry event, “LMAI  Conference” in 2017 at Jaipur I promised to write the 2nd part of my first article titled  “History of the Indian Label Industry” which I wrote in 2006. It is available in this blog at https://harveersahni.blogspot.com/2010/08/history-of-indian-label-industry.html
I have now written the 2nd part. This is brief reporting so I plan to complete a book on the subject with a lot more expanded information in the near future. In a large country with industry spread over such a vast area and a huge population, it is difficult to chronicle all in few words. Being a long article, the part 2 of History of the Indian Label Industry will be posted on my blog in a series of four articles. The first part of series numbered  2A is as below;

The first decade of new millennium was very eventful for the Indian label industry. After 2006 a global economic recession surfaced and kept growing, affecting businesses across the world.

It even impacted many industries in India where we saw companies reducing manpower, which in turn affected spending in all segments of retail. Surprisingly while printers in India as well, were complaining of recessionary trends and difficulty in operations, yet the Indian label industry overall, continued to grow steadily. Capacity enhancement kept on being made, though it was a little reduced. The Indians became indulgent not only as label printers but also as diverse product and equipment suppliers to label printing companies. For the first time an Indian company Precise Graphics, later renamed PGI Technologies in 2005 produced a magnetic cylinder that worked on a label press. Dhiresh Ghosalia led Jesons, manufacturers of emulsion pressure sensitive adhesives for the label industry at their large factory in Daman, expanded and moved northwards in India and setup an additional manufacturing capacity at a 100,000 square feet facility in Roorkee. Kaygee Papers was promoted by Pranay Godha in 1997 to produce silicone coated release papers. In 2001 they made a Joint Venture, Kaygee Loparex Pvt. Ltd. with Loparex, a member of UPM group and world’s largest commercial Siliconiser. They continued to grow and became an important part of the Indian label industry in the first decade. In 2015 Loparex assumed 100% of the company and rechristened it as Loparex India Pvt. Ltd. In August 2007 Diehard Dies, based in Guntur Andhra Pradesh, started operations to become an indigenous manufacturer of flexible dies for the printing, packaging and label industry. By middle of 2019 Acme Rolltech a company led by 3 young entrepreneurs Parag Patel, Sandeep Sharma and Parag Koradiya started the first Indian facility manufacturing Ceramic Anilox Rolls. Sandeep, came to the partnership with 15 years of experience having worked with Avery Dennison, Kurz India and Domino Printech, Parag Patel and Parag Koradiya came from entrepreneurial background of manufacturing Gravure Cylinders. 

In 2007 the largest indigenous labelstock producer Ajay Mehta’s SMI Coated Products initiated an expansion program that would eventually place SMI as an undisputed leader in labelstock production by a wholly Indian owned company, not only in India but also in many international markets.

They procured a 6540 square meter plot in MIDC, Ambernath near Mumbai, constructed 2200 square meter shed, shifted all plant and machinery from Daman to Ambernath, added two silicon coating machines and one Acrylic Coating machine. In 2014 they increased the production area by another 3000 square meters and installed a Hot Melt coating line, following it up by installing yet another hotmelt adhesive coater later.  

In 2017 they purchased the adjoining plot admeasuring 9820 Square meters, constructed 1000 square meters to install Schaeffer moving racks for better handling of an increasing volume of goods in their expanding stores.

In 2019 they completed construction of another 3000 square meters shed and moved all coating machines to new premises along with a new emulsion adhesive coating tandem machine to do inline siliconizing and adhesive coating in a single pass, 1350 mm wide to run at a speed of 150 meters per minute, reaching an installed capacity of 19 million square meters per month. They celebrated their 25 years in grand style by hosting over 200 guests to visit their works besides take part in the celebrations. Other indigenous labelstock manufacturers also grew in their own respective regions. Stayon Papers and Sticon in Hyderabad, Million papers and NG papers in Chennai, Capri Coating Solutions in Mumbai, Shree Arihant, STP Paper, Gj Industries and many more in Delhi were some of the active and visible manufacturers. Some of the earlier leaders in the Labelstock manufacturing segment pulled back or shifted focus in view of depleting margins, intense competition and unviable credit terms.

Indian label press manufacturers transformed in this period to produce label presses that were comparable to international products and made their mark not only in India but internationally as well.

Amit Ahuja led Multitec is the front runner who had exhibited their first modular rotary flexo label press in partnership with Abhay Datta of Datta Press Delhi at the first India Label show in 2002 at Nehru Centre Mumbai. The association of Multitec with Datta came to an end around 2008. Multitec redesigned their label press as a competitive product with all basic features. After renaming the press, “Ecoflex” they relaunched it. Two year hence they launched yet another version of their label press and continued to upgrade their offerings and grow phenomenally. By the end of 2018 they had achieved outstanding success producing label presses from a quality accredited design and a fully integrated manufacturing facility spread over 26,000 square meters. At the time of writing this article their website reports having sold over 300 Label presses to over 25 countries through a team of agents spread across the world. Other Indian press manufacturers who also made their mark are mostly from Faridabad, south of Delhi, the same city as Multitec. They are Alliance Printech, Webtech Engineering, NBG Printographic Machinery Co. Pvt. Ltd., M Tech Industries, etc. Other than these, Ahmedabad based RK label machines claimed to have sold 150 rotary plus 600 flatbed label presses and Noida based Jandu Engineers had sold about 135 rotary flexo presses. Jandu is also a leading manufacturer of coating and laminating machines and has a large presence amongst local labelstock manufacturers and according to Baldev Singh Jandu, they have till date sold over 150 coaters.

The Indian label market was growing at a steady double-digit growth rate and interest of international label fraternity in India also kept on growing with it. Avery Dennison who had found success in the country had in 2007 invested in land admeasuring 22 acres at Ranjangaon near Pune for expansion.

In 2008 the facility was with a one-meter wide hotmelt coater having capability to run at 500 meters per minute with inline silicon coating, this compared to the first one-meter coater at Gurgaon that could run at 250 meters per minute. The then global CEO and President of Avery Dennison Corporation Dean Scarborough specially flew in to inaugurate the facility. In 2010 Raj Srinivasan who had established Avery’s foothold in India returned to USA handing over reigns of the Indian operations to Anil Sharma. New wave of professionalism descended in the working of Avery; more expansion followed with installation of a 1.5 meters hot melt coater in 2011 at Pune. In the same year a slitting facility was commissioned in Bangalore in 2011 to serve the southern customers effectively. To help the cause of a limited number of trained press operators in India in face of a growing label press population,  Avery Dennison Knowledge Centre was also set up in Bangalore to train people for becoming press operators, but later in 2018 the centre was moved to Pune, next to their research and development centre. In 2014 an emulsion coater of 1.5meter width was added at the Pune facility. In 2015 Anil Sharma was elevated for bigger responsibilities and handed over charge to his teammate Pankaj Bhardwaj. Amongst international Labelstocks companies UPM Raflatac had established a substantial foothold with their slitting facilities in India while Lintec, Ritrama, flexcon and a few others sold through agents or directly.

Increase in number of visitors to labelexpo Europe in Brussels was a positive indicator of a growing label market in India and the interests of printers to invest in globally acknowledged label presses. In 2005 Weldon Celloplast Ltd. was the lone Indian exhibitor and by 2011 edition of the show, the number of Indian exhibitors had swelled to fourteen, up from four in the previous show in 2009.

At Labelexpo Europe 2009 there were 338 Indian visitors and this figure had swelled to 429 in 2011. The number just went on increasing, there were more Indians then before at successive labelexpos.

In 2007 at Labelexpo Europe in Brussels Tarsus announced their acquisition of India Label show, a show that was set up by Anil Arora and his wife Neetu Arora.

The next edition of India Label show 2008 in New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan was held in the aftermath of terrorist attack in Mumbai and in the middle of a huge recession, yet the show stood its ground proving the strength of growing Indian label market. In 2010 the show was rechristened as Labelexpo India. The show owners Tarsus UK made a strategic alliance with Indian Label association LMAI for the event and to have an awards night and a gala dinner organised by Tarsus at every Labelexpo India. LMAI was to conduct the LMAI label awards which became a regular feature thereafter. In 2009 under the leadership of Vivek Kapoor, the longest serving president of LMAI who completed 3 terms of 2 years each, it was also planned to hold biennial LMAI conference in alternate years, the trend has carried on till date. The first LMAI conference was held in Hotel park Hyatt Goa in 2011 and the event grew to be held again in 2013 at Grand Hyatt Goa and at Hotel Jaypee Palace in Agra in 2017. 

In 2010 leading global associations came together under the aegis of FINAT and formed the federation of global associations called L8. Later with one more association joining it was renamed L9, the confederation of nine leading international label associations.

The alliance consisted of LMAI (India), JFLP (Japan), FINAT (Europe), TLMI (North America, LATMA (Australia), PEIAC (China), AMETIQ (Mexico), ABIEA (Brazil) and SALMA (New Zealand). Sandeep Zaveri of Total Prints took over the presidentship of LMAI in 2015 and handed over the charge to Kuldip Goel of Any Graphics in 2017.  At the 2017 conference in Agra 550 delegates attended making it the largest gathering of label printers at a single conference. A proud moment for me at the Agra conference in 2017 came when I was announced as the first and only recipient till then of a lifetime award for support to the Indian Label industry.  

In 2016 Labelexpo was moved to the Expo Mart in Greater Noida outside Delhi, a part of Delhi NCR (National Capital Region) due to non-availability of dates at New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan.

In 2018 also it was held at the Expo Mart as the venue, Pragati Maidan in Delhi, was under redevelopment. In 2018 for the first time LMAI hosted a very successful L9 meet in India on the sidelines of Labelexpo India.

The evolution of label industry in India has been a continuous process, from the earliest days of screen-printed labels in sheeted format in the 1970s to roll form labels to be converted on very narrow width flatbed Japanese presses and then over to rotary flexographic printing label presses in the early 1990s.

Until the end of 1990s the flexo printing process used water-based inks with hot air drying.

The polymer plate making technology was also evolving. The process was evolving but it had shortcomings. It was faster than the flat bed machines but lacked consistency due to drying and viscosity changing issues. Better prepress and improvements in platemaking technologies brought flexo printing to almost at par in quality to offset printing. This led the rapid growth in flexographic label printing. As demand escalated, investments in equipment also witnessed increase with printers demanding wider presses for increased productivity and reduced wastages. By end of the last century UV curable inks became available and changed the way flexo printing grew. Originally, UV technology was introduced to the world in the 1960s. The drying effect for water-based inks is brought about by evaporation of volatile components. The required energy is supplied via IR-radiation and/or hot air. A loss in the dried coating thickness will appear depending on the amount of the evaporated components. The volatile components must be removed by an extraction. However, in case of the UV inks, the drying effect is due to polymerization, i.e. on cross-linking of long molecular chains. The energy required for cross-linking is supplied via UV radiation. For 100 % solid body systems the thickness of the dry coating corresponds to the thickness of the wet coating. There are no losses due to evaporation. By 2010 new UV inks came with enhanced ink transfer properties as well as faster reactivity to UV curing, meaning speeds over 200 meters/min. were achievable. Towards end of 2009 the conventional UV started to evolve to low power consuming LED UV with longer life lamps that had surfaced internationally, though the system had yet to be widely accepted in India due to non-availability of parts and inks, but it was being investigated and expected to grow substantially in demand or replaced on existing presses.  Some of the international equipment manufacturers had already introduced alternatives such as LED UV and even Electron Beam curing technology as an alternative. From the middle of first decade of 21st century onwards there grew a demand for high end hybrid presses with increased features like automatic registration, multiple printing processes for combination printing and decoration capabilities. As sustainability and environmental concerns became an imperative; waste reduction, and waste management became a necessity when an investment in equipment was being made.End of Part 2A, To be continued…
The remaining parts will be posted in gaps of 7-10 days 
Note: No one is authorised to reproduce, copy or reprint this article until permitted by the author in writing. 
Written by Harveer Sahni Managing Director Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi July 2019

LMAI Brand owners’ event, a roaring success!

LMAI Brand owners’ event, a roaring success!

Label manufacturing continues to evolve into different tangents involving diverse technologies. The retail selling scenario is undergoing a sea change as also the need to make consumers repetitive buyers of branded products. The times of shopkeepers promoting sales of their preferred brands is transforming rapidly into one where the consumers decide on their own what to lift off the shelf, given the modern retail growth. In view of growing need for printers having capabilities to produce decorative and innovative labels that catch the consumer’s eye providing brand security and enhancing the brand’s image as well; there is an imperative need for brand owners to connect with the label converters. In such a scenario, India’s label association, Label Manufacturers Association of India (LMAI) organised a program exclusively for label printers titled, “Brand owners’ perception of labels in changing scenario” at hotel, The Orchid, Mumbai. The program was attended by over 100 delegates comprising mostly of top end label printing companies, packaging professionals of renowned brands, sponsors and LMAI board members. It was an effort to promote the positive escalation of labels in a changing scenario bringing the stake holders at a single platform to strategise a win-win solution.

Following prominent speakers shared their thoughts:
 
Suresh Gupta Former Chairman Huhtamaki-PPL
Somnath Chatterjee GM Procurement – Pernod Ricard, Segment: Liquor
Anil Choubey Head Packaging Dev.-Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. Segment: FMCG
Ajay Bapat Associate Dir. Packaging Dev. Emcure Pharmaceuticals Ltd. Segment: Pharma
Vishwas Jangam Packaging Dev. Mgr. at Future Consumer Enterprises Ltd. Segment: Retail
Prabir Das Head – Packaging Tech. Services Mylan Laboratories Limited segment: Pharma
Ainain Shahidi, Director SIES School of Packaging was special invitee who moderated the event
Other Packaging industry professionals who attended the program include Fazal Farooqui DGM Packaging Development Zydus Wellness formerly Kraft Heinz Company, Sunil Patil-HPCL and Ms. Koel Bhadra-Packaging development Professional.
 

Delivering the keynote address Suresh Gupta, former Chairman Huhtamaki-PPL expressed his philosophy of success for the entrepreneurs present, “Sound fundamentals are enshrined in Good values; being Good compassionate people, knowing knowledge is power to be used with integrity, ever improving quality and service and continuous innovation makes for happy customers. Be the flag bearer of standard in your industry” He further cautioned printers to be ready; for the present equipment to become outdated in 5 years due to fast evolving label technologies and be ready to invest in new equipment after properly understanding the technology. Impressing upon the fact that Digital printing is the future.

Prabir Das, Head Packaging Technical Services (OSD) of Mylan laboratories spoke about Importance and effectiveness in Product-People Connectivity where packaging is the connector and labelling is the communicator. It is a necessity therefore to design the packaging that establishes the connection and the regulatory and statutory information is communicated through the label.

Somnath Chatterjee, General Manager Procurement of Pernod Ricard said that labels must appeal delivering a lifestyle message. He also stressed the need to reduce wastages. Referring to the increase in counterfeiting in liquor, Somnath invited printers to offer them unique solutions even though they themselves are already implementing security measures to safeguard the interests of there consumers. He felt that it is important to get all stakeholders in label production to ponder over the needs with the end user consumer in mind. 

Ajay Bapat, associate director packaging development, Emcure Pharmaceuticals informed about the necessity of right information, cleanliness and the need for smart labelling. 

Anil Choubey Head of Packaging Development Patanjali Ayurved Limited spoke the need for effective, sustainable and eco friendly labels and would be looking forwards to printer suppliers offering such products. 

Vishwas Jangam Packaging Development Manager of Future Consumer Enterprises Limited the company that owns Big Bazar chain of retail malls and stores spread across India, dwelled on specific needs of designs for labels on the shop shelves. Modern day retail that is growing at 21% CAGR needs the attention of the consumer who makes an impulsive buying decision in just about 12 seconds.

The event was moderated by Ainain Shahidi a packaging industry professional and now the director of SIES School of Packaging. He enthralled the audience with his amazing Urdu poetry and couplets while leading the flow of event. He also apprised the audience about the activities of SIES School of packaging. 

Before presenting vote of thanks Manish Desai past President LMAI, announced the next LMAI conference at Grand Hyatt Hotel, Kochi on July 2019, the Indian label Industry’s most important and biggest event.

The event was sponsored by Avery Dennison and SMI Coated Papers as gold sponsors and Creative Graphics as silver sponsors. Manish Desai while thanking the audience felicitated with mementos the speakers, the moderator Ainain Shahidi, the packaging professionals who attended and Harveer Sahni who curated this event with help of LMAI leadership team. Leading printers who attended included Amar Chhajed from Huhtamaki-PPL, Vivek Kapoor-Creative Labels, Chandan Khanna-Ajanta packaging, Manish Desai-Mudrika Labels, Tejas Tanna-Printmann, Arvind Shekhar-Sai Packaging, Aditya Patwardhan, Mahendra Shah-Renault Paper, Sandeep Zaveri- Total Prints, Naveen Goel-Any Graphics, Rahul Kapoor-JK Fine prints, Patricia-Letragraphix, Sandhya Shetty-Synergy Packaging, Anil Namugade-Trigon Digital, Sanjay Purandre -Shree Ganesh Graphics and so many more. The event was media covered by and attended by Naresh Khanna and his team from Packaging South Asia, Pradeep Saroha Country head for Tarsus, Aakriti Agarwal- Indian editor of Labels and labelling UK and Noel D’Cunha and his team form Printweek!

Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi March 2019
Print Publications are free to reproduce this article giving credit to author Harveer Sahni

Trigon Digital Solutions, successful in digital printing of labels

Trigon Digital Solutions, successful in digital printing of labels
On the 22nd of November 2018 at the LMAI Avery Dennison Awards night, held on the side lines of Labelexpo India, the winner announced in digital printing category-Wine and Spirits was Trigon Digital Solutions, Mumbai. Just over a week later, on the 29th of November 2018, Trigon was declared the Printweek India “Digital Printer of the year”. This was Trigon’s fourth award; the first two were Printweek “Pre-press Company of the year” awards won in 2015 and 2017. It is an incredible performance by a company promoted by first generation entrepreneurs just 10 years ago, with no previous experience in running a manufacturing company. They moved into roll form digital printing of labels merely 3 years ago. They have invested in a digital printing press at a time when we are witnessing the evolutionary shift of label production in India from conventional processes to digital. Digital printing is a segment of label industry that leading label manufacturing companies have been extremely hesitant to invest in, due to high cost of equipment and consumables. Anil  Namugade the co-founder, along with partner Milind Deshpande, have promoted Trigon Digital and successfully led it on its digital label journey.

 

After graduating in Economics from Mumbai University Anil Namugade, also a Printing Technologist from the Government Institute of Printing Technology, took up jobs as a scanner operator from 1994 to 1997 in few of the leading pre-press houses in Mumbai. Here he acquired immense knowledge in repro-colour separation and prepress. In 1998 he joined Heidelberg as a software specialist and continued to work there until 2003. Anil joined Kodak as packaging and proofing specialist in 2003. It was a purely technical job where he developed his passion for proofing, learnt the nuances of colour management and the imperative need of good prepress for excellence in final print. During his stint with Kodak he was also handling technical and sales support which helped him gain experience in selling as well. Unfortunately, by 2007 Kodak was seeing a decline in business and as restructuring process was being put in place, he had to exit Kodak. Suddenly that one day he found himself jobless, away from a stable job in an MNC(Multi National Company). He firmly believed in and followed a simple mantra of success and excellence; “Look at problem as an opportunity and learn to grow and excel”. Drawing inspiration from this mantra, he along with partner Milind Deshpande who is also a printing technologist, set up their maiden start-up venture Trigon Digital Solutions. 

 

From past experience and knowledge he had acquired from working in the previous jobs, Anil knew that customers needing packaging, wanted to see how their product would look, before they opted for actual printing and production. He saw the opportunity in this need, so Trigon was set up as a proofing and mock-up producing company. His knowledge of prepress and colour management helped him to achieve his goal. Earlier it used to be the creative agencies that visualised and created a format for packaging, Trigon creating an actual marketable mock up for the companies was a new and welcome development for brand owner companies. The first equipment they invested in was Kodak Approval NX that printed in sheet format and started to take up proofing and mock-up creation for customers. Finding success in their endeavors he soon realised that being closer to the customer is an imperative.  In 2010 Trigon opened a facility in Bangalore and followed it up by setting up a unit in Delhi in 2012. In 2015 they went international by setting shop in Dubai and later an office in Singapore. All the units except the office in Singapore are equipped with Kodak Approval NX.

 

In 2015 they saw the opportunity in customers demanding label mock-ups in roll form, so in their Mumbai facility they invested in an Epson Surepress to produce samples including Flexibles, Laminates and Labels by digital printing in roll form. Moreover, the production on Kodak was turning out to be expensive and limited to sheet format. Soon their customers upgraded from demanding just mock-ups to ordering short runs for their specialised marketing needs.  They also started to see business emanating from the shrink sleeve segment as also a growing demand for other roll form variants. The slow speed of Surepress could not cater to the demand they were getting and also there was a limitation that it could not produce shrink sleeves. At this time in 2017 Trigon decided to take a major step of investing in an HP Indigo 6000 digital press and enhance their capability to produce a larger range of products. A year down the line in 2018 Trigon yet again upgraded their HP Indigo 6000 to HP Indigo 6900 which had enhanced features. On this HP 6900 they could do inline primer coating saving them the time and valuable space, print metallic inks and florescent inks. With a widened customer base and enhanced capabilities they now cater to applications in FMCG, Liquor, Personalised labels, Variable Data labels, QR codes and a lot more. They now produce and sell a range besides labels, offering flexible packaging, complex laminates, lamitubes and shrink sleeves. Anil Namugade firmly believes that digital is the future of printing and innovative packaging. Dwelling on the general apprehension of label printers regarding ROI (Return on Investment), he feels that it becomes better from an expanded vision of providing specialised services to the customer. These services that Trigon offers include brand management, database management including validation, preparing the mock-ups for test marketing before indulging extensively, offering creativity to customers for their evaluation and aiding decision making, personalisation or customisation and incorporating variable information on each label or package at short notice. Their experience in pre-press has helped them greatly and he believes that by adding full post press setup Trigon has become a one stop shop for the needs of brand owners. The additional cost of digitally converted products needs to spell value for customers to justify the cost. Anil asserts that the vision for success of flexo graphic printing and Digital printing should be looked at separately and not as a comparison. 

 

Trigon Digital Solutions plans to remain focused in digital Printing. With already a facility in Dubai and an office in Singapore they are a global entity and they will be expanding their global reach by establishing a setup in U.K. in 2019-2020 as they already have customers in 18 countries including UK and Europe. They have endeavored to remain logistically close to customers to be able to provide service at their doorstep. Surprisingly due to their business model of being linked to packaging development, marketing and brand management, their revenues do not come from purchase budgets of customers but come from their marketing budgets. Trigon making optimum use of space operates out of around 1800 square feet shop floor area of all facilities put together. Headquartered in Andheri East, Mumbai they have a workforce of 102 persons. At Trigon every new creation is a challenge but developing it is not. Anil proudly says innovation, technology, extensive knowledge of prepress, and having “People with Passion” in their team has always been a winning force for Trigon. They are committed to improve upon what the customer wants or brings to them for creation of a label or package that will spell success for their products and brand. 

 

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman WeldonCelloplast Limited New Delhi December 2018

LMAI to host Global Label Associations Group-“L9”

LMAI to host Global Label Associations Group-“L9”

Indian Label industry has for the last many years been registering steady double-digit growth. The industry largely consists of family-owned small or medium-sized enterprises employing 1-5 label presses. A handful of larger enterprises have surfaced in recent times due to acquisitions or mergers by multinational companies.

The size still needs to become bigger to reach the size of large international label producers. Ironically some of the upcoming existing companies in this segment who were growing and appeared to become large players, opted to be acquired rather than go it alone. We do see some Indian owned label companies now rising from the crowds to become evident in growth beyond the average size. It is hoped that they will also not opt to be acquired, we do need indigenous companies that will grow and prove their mettle. There is an imperative need for these companies to break away from being single owner or family driven businesses to become professionally-managed entities. They need to optimise production processes, manage wastages, invest in workflow automation, etc. leading to continuous growth and better profitability. Stronger bottom lines in the industry is sure to enable printers investing in expansion and employment of new technologies leading to evolution of the industry, presenting state of art products. A large population and expanding retail trade are driving the demand for labels. The industry that originated in just the metro cities is now spreading to the interiors of India, there is need for further growth as printers realise the need to be multilocational to be able to service customers in a large country more efficiently. At this time the exhibition Labelexpo is looked at with interest as it provides knowledge not only to existing printers but also to new entrants. It showcases the best of indigenous and international label production equipment, materials and consumables at one place. India’s label association LMAI not only supports this important exhibition but also adds value to it by organising events on the side lines, making it worthwhile for their printer and supplier members.

LMAI, L9 meet: L9 is the informal platform of leading global trade associations for the labels and narrow-web industry which was founded in 2009 for the purposes of communicating regional issues and developments to the global industry, identifying and jointly examining issues of transnational concern to industry members, sharing information, developing and recommending best Industry practices regarding efficiency,

training, technology, safety and environmental matters, recognizing Industry achievements and pursuing such other programmes and activities as may promote and better the industry worldwide. The alliance consists of LMAI (India), JFLP (Japan), FINAT (Europe), TLMI (North America), LATMA (Australia), PEIAC (China), AMETIQ (Mexico), ABIEA (Brazil) and SALMA (New Zealand). Every year L9 meets in one of the member association countries. At the last 7th L9 meet in Beijing China it was decided that LMAI India will host the next meet. LMAI has made elaborate plans. It is now scheduled to be a 4-day prestigious global meet that will include multiple events and agendas including Label Exchange Program, L9 Board Meeting, Industry visits, Labelexpo visit, networking and leisure activities. The event will also cover a wide range of subjects within the label industry including sourcing and consumption of raw material, future demands, quality parameters, new machinery, innovative technologies and global trends. 

Spearheading the program LMAI past President Sandeep Zaveri says, “We are very excited to welcome the L9 participants to India” acknowledging support of his LMAI colleagues Vivek Kapur, Amit Sheth, Ajay Mehta, Harveer Sahni, President-Kuldip Goel, Rajesh Nema, Ramesh Deshpande and Dinesh Mahajan in organising this important event, he further adds, “It is an opportunity for all our label printer friends to meet international label printing leaders and hear them on various ascents like recycling sustainability.” The L9 meet and related events are sponsored by SMI Coated Products as main sponsor and Intergraphic Pulisi. 

LMAI Avery Dennison Label Awards Night: This prestigious Label industry biennial event has

traditionally been organised by Tarsus, the organiser of Labelexpo India along with the show Labelexpo. This is the first time that the event is being organised by LMAI under the leadership of their President Kuldip Goel. LMAI Avery Dennison Awards night will take place on the first day of Labelexpo India on 22nd of November 2018 at Expo Mart Greater Noida, UP India. It is expected to be a memorable event full of information, presentations, entertainment and global networking opportunities as the international visitors who will come for L9 meet will also be present. The award categories are as follows;
·       Flexo Category 
·       Letterpress Category
·       Offset Category 
·       Combination Printing Category  
·       Digital Printing Category 
·       Screen Printing Category
·       Rotogravure Category (under Gold Category)
·       Booklets & Coupon Labels Category (under Gold Category)
·       Innovation Category (under Gold Category)
·       Green Sustainable Category
The entry to the awards night function is restricted to either invitees or paid ticket holders.
PRICES AND BOOKING;
·       Individual places – per seat price – Rs. 3999
·       For LMAI members the cost is subsidised to Rs. 2999 Sponsors for this gala night are as follows;

  • Avery Dennison           Gold Sponsor
  • Vinsak                          Silver Sponsor
  • Nilpeter                        Silver Sponsor
  • SMI Coated Products   Silver Sponsor
  • OMET and Dupont      Silver sharing Sponsor
  • Intergraphic Pulisi        Silver Sponsor
  • Gallus/Heidelberg        Silver Sponsor
  • J N Arora and Co.        Silver Sponso

Labelexpo India: Labelexpo India is scheduled to be held at Expo Martsharing , Greater Noida, UP India from 22nd to 25th November 2018. It is the largest event for the label and package printing industry in South Asia – with more products, more launches and more live demonstrations! The exhibition will display Digital and conventional printing presses, High tech label and packaging materials, Prepress and platemaking technology, Finishing and converting systems, Inspection, overprinting and label application equipment, Dies, cutters, rollers, Inks and coatings, RFID and security solutions, Software and interactive technology. Spread over 4 days in 4 halls the show has 250 exhibitors which include Avery Dennison, Bobst, Esko, HP, Hyden Packaging, Martin Automatic, Monotech Systems, Nilpeter, OMET, RK Label, Xeikon, and Zhejiang Weigang Machinery. The last labelexpo India in 2016 saw over 8000 visitors.

Brand Innovation Day: Labelexpo India 2018 hosted “Brand Innovation Day” will take place on the afternoon of Thursday 22 November (Day 1 of the show). It will include a series of presentations followed by a short tour of key suppliers, highlighting the latest technologies and showing how brands can achieve stand-out product presence. About 50 brand owners and packaging designers in India are expected to attend. The purpose of the program is to equip delegates with expert insight into making the most out of their brand, how they can overcome key challenges on the path to future growth and staying ahead of competition in a fast-paced industry. 

Labelexpo Global Series managing director Lisa Milburn, who will open the Brand Innovation Day, said: “Our most commonly asked question at Labelexpo India is how brands can learn how to use their labels and packaging to stand out from the competition. Given the success and popularity of our educational program for our other Labelexpo events including our Americas show in held in last September, we wanted to provide similar opportunities for Labelexpo India attendees. The appetite for labels and package printing continues undiminished in India and it is now one of the biggest growth markets, so it felt the right moment to offer this educational opportunity to brand owners and packaging designers at the show itself. “The Brand Innovation Day” is a rare chance for them to gain industry insights into how a brand can be inspired to innovate, experience the highlights of Labelexpo India 2018, and learn the tricks of the trade from the experts.”

The Labelexpo India Brand Innovation Day is sponsored by HP, Avery Dennison and SMI.
The above article is written and compiled by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi India, October 2018

My Pictorial walk through an amazing Labelexpo 2017!

My Pictorial walk through an amazing Labelexpo 2017!
 
 
 
Add caption
Labelexpo Europe 2017 at Brussels has been the biggest ever edition in the event's history so far. The show that is primarily dedicated to self adhesive labels industry has now evolved to  different segments of labels and into the larger world of print packaging. Evidently the show will continue to become bigger in the years that follow. As per information from Tarsus, the show occupied nine exhibition halls to be 12 percent bigger than the previous edition in 2015. It hosted 679 exhibitors, including 198 new participants. There was 25 percent more working machinery demonstrated at the show, including a number of product launches. Labelexpo Europe attracted large delegations from Brazil, China, India and Japan, the show reported 37,724 visitors; an increase of 5.6 percent on 35,739 visitors to Labelexpo Europe 2015. There were a number of sales recorded on the show floor.

I reproduce here images from my pictorial walk through this amazing show and the events organised on the sides and attended by me.

 





 
The Omet Agents Dinner one day prior to Labelexpo






 




Harveer Sahni and Amit Sheth as Judges at World Label Awards
  






Judging in progress for World Label awards













Chinese Press Manufacturers Weigang, stand








With Mike Russel International Sales Director Mark Andy











 
Mark Andy/Rotoflex Stand  




 
With Dirk Schroder, Sales Manager E+L displaying their intelligent inspection system






 






 
With Pankaj Bhardwaj Vice President and General Manager, South Asia Pacific and Sub Saharan Africa of Avery Dennison, India at their stand.







 






 
At the The Label Industry Global Awards Night and Gala Dinner, Tony White announcing the "Best of the Best" in World Label awards heldon the sidelines of Labelexpo Europe!







 






 
LMAI (India's label association) President Kuldip Goel and Vice President Rajesh Nema with Labelexpo Managing Director Lisa Milburn.







 







Professor Tan Junqiao receiving the receiving the Stanton Avery Lifetime achievement award from Georges Gravanis, President, Label and Graphic Materials, Avery Dennison and Mike Fairley





 
With Douglas Emslie, Tarsus Group Managing Director  


 







With FINAT President Chris Ellison, FINAT events and communication manager Jakovina and LMAI Vice President Rajesh Nema





 





With Jules Lejuene, Managing Director FINAT







 






FINAT President in meeting with Mike Fairley at the "Label Academy" Stand

 








Networking at Dinner hosted by Lisa Milburn for Industry friends and colleagues around the world

 








Jakob Landsberg Sales Director of Nilpeter with Niklas Olsson Global Brand Manager of Flintgroup








 
With Lisa and Mike Fairley at the dinner        
SMI Team at their Stand



















 
 
Amit Ahuja Multitec            














 
 





 
The Gallus Stand
 
With Lars and Peter Eriksen of Nilpeter
 
Kocher + Beck Stand
 
Karan Reddy of SticOn papers Hyderabad
 
Tapan Patel of BST Eltromat















 
 
 
 
 
John of Orthotec  
Bobst Stand  


















 
Gavin Rittmeyer of Martin Automatic
MPS Stand


















 
Kapil Anand of Cosmo Films
Marco Calcagni of OMET


















 
 
Spilker Team














 
The Sahnis with Paolo Grasso, Omet













 






 
No Labelexpo at Brussels is complete without having spent a casual fun evening at the Grand Place!!!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Compiled By Harveer Sahni, Chairman, Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi October 2017

Avery Dennison: 20 eventful years in India

Avery Dennison: 20 eventful years in India
www.averydennison.com
Living in a rented chicken co-operative, a young American poverty stricken man in his early 20s worked as a night clerk to fund his education. He stopped school and went to live for a year in China, where he gained experience working with a printing press. He returned to USA after the year, graduated and desperately tried his hands at various business options, he even sold smoked bananas! He then took on a morning job at a flower shop and later in the day started to experiment on various small things in a 100 square foot place nearby. He came up with the idea of making self sticking labels. With the printing press experience behind him he saw the vision to start his new venture. With no money of his own, he borrowed 100$ from his fiancée, Dorothy Durfee, who later became his wife, to invest in his startup business. Using a washing machine motor, parts of a sewing machine and a saber saw, he developed the world’s first self adhesive label cutting machine. In 1935 he started his maiden venture Kum-Kleen Adhesive Products Co which would be the mother enterprise of the world’s largest labelstock company Avery Dennison Corporation and this poor man was"Ray Stanton Avery!"
In the first balance sheet of the company on 31st December 1935, the total assets stood at 958.82$ and Stan Avery’s capital at 488.77$.
The company was later renamed Avery Products Corp. based in Pasadena USA. In 1990 it was merged with Dennison Manufacturing of Framingham, Massachusetts, a firm that made and marketed adhesive label products as well as glue sticks, felt markers and other office supplies through such chains as Home Depot and Staples. It came to be known as Avery Dennison Corporation. The business so acquired from Dennison Manufacturing, became the Office and Consumer Products Division. This business along with their “Designed and Engineered Solutions” business was later sold to their largest customer CCL Industries Inc. for 500 Million USD.
R Stanton Avery
R Stanton Avery died in 1997 at the age of 90 years. At that time the company had 16,000 employees and annual sales of $3.2 billion. As of 2016, Avery Dennison’s sales were 6.09 Billion Dollars with manufacturing and distribution presence in over 50 countries, product sales in 90 countries and 25000 employees worldwide. They are ranked 427 in the list of Fortune 500 companies.
Raj Gopal Srinivasan
As western markets started showing signs of saturation and slowing growth rates, Avery Dennison took a strategic decision to invest in emerging markets.Chinaand India being home to over 37% of the world population became the obvious destinations to invest into. The China investment happened in 1994-95 and investments into India followed soon after. Indian pressure sensitive labels market was still in a nascent stage and the potential of this technology had neither been fully unraveled or exploited. Wet glue labels were largely prevalent. Manual labeling or wet glue applicators were in use with most brand owners. An Avery Dennison team, led by Ron, set up its base in India. Raj Gopal Srinivasan was appointed the first General Manager to build and to lead a motivated team. Under his dynamic leadership the first team of 25-30 employees gave shape to the project and in March 1997Avery Dennison India Private Limitedcommenced operations as a part of Asia Pacific Division of Avery Dennison Corporation.
The initial operations were started in a leased facility at Narsinghpur Industrial Area, Gurgaon with a single slitter to slit and distribute material imported from their units outside India. Given the size of the country and the label industry spread in small numbers across all regions, it was gigantic task with a limited team to achieve levels of business that would do justice to their stature as a multinational. Raj and his team did an excellent job by building personal rapport and relationship that extended bonding not only to the company managements but also to the families of owners. It was relationship selling at its best. A setup that was based entirely on imports was difficult to sustain as custom duties were high, foreign exchange fluctuated and rules were stringent. The input cost variations made stable selling prices a challenge.The management at Avery Dennison soon realized the imperative need to produce locally. A one meter wide hotmelt adhesive coater was installed in January 1998 to produce stocks with imported raw materials. The initial staff had a perfect team spirit instilled in them and motivated to achieve more with less resources.
Mahesh Pathak
A few of those initial team members of Raj Srinivasan are still working with Avery Dennison.Mahesh Pathak, joined in 1997 asone responsible for entire process and quality of plants. He was instrumental in setting up the entire department from scratch and commercialized all products locally with success. He was responsible for the organization to be the first certified Six-Sigma BB in whole of Asia-pacific region. He is also responsible for having lead the expansion and setting up of all plants. He has risen to be theSenior Operations Director – South Asia Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa (SAP and SSA).Umesh Agrawal, joined in 1997 as materials manager and over the years took up different responsibilities in the organization. Heading the operations from 2001-2003, Head of business and product development 2003-2006, Director-Supply Chain and Product Development 2006-2012, Director Supply Chain 2012-2014 South Asia and South Africa and now Director Supply Chain, Asia Pacific.Muralie KS, a Chartered accountant joined the team later in 2008, he is the Finance Director of the company.Sailesh Kapur joined Avery’s team in January 2008, he built up a strong connect with customers and also shaped up the present structure of their sales organization. Other members of Raj Srinivasan’s team who also contributed to making a strong foundation for the project but later left the organization includeDhiraj KapurandKapil Anand.
Once local production started, business did begin to settle down, however high duties and political uncertainty in country drove the company to start innovating and develop products based on local inputs manufactured to their stringent specifications and quality control systems. In 2001, Avery Dennison started to siliconize their own release liners and started to produce adhesive locally. This exercise of localizing and reducing dependence on imports along with lean manufacturing to economies of scale helped the company to offer products at affordable prices. Avery Dennison also took upon themselves to educate brand owners about the benefits of usingPressure Sensitive Adhesives(PSA) labels and about the consistency of the quality from Avery Dennison products. This not only brought additional business to them but helped to grow the market size in the country. Once the business situation settled down, by 2004 Avery Denison India was on a steady rate of double digit growth. It was time to make significant investments in technology and people as also to contribute to the expansion of PS market in India. It was also time to expand.
Avery Dennison Plant in Pune
In 2007 land admeasuring 22 acres was acquired at Ranjangaon near Pune for expansion. In 2008 the facility was ready to go into production with a one meter hotmelt coater, with capability to run at 500 meters per minute with inline silicon coating, this compared to the first one meter coater at Gurgaon that could run at 250 meters per minute. The facility was inaugurated by Dean Scarborough, the previous global CEO and President of Avery Dennison Corporation. An interesting story of his visit is that Dean flew into Mumbai on company’s private jet from where he came to Pune in a helicopter. The pilot of the helicopter lost way and landed in fields nearby and Dean had to be brought in by a private car. In 2010 having paved the path for stable growth and leaving behind a legacy of service to the customers as a primary focus, Raj Srinivasan left for USA. He had inculcated in a culture at Avery Dennison India of going to any extent to honour commitments and deliver top-notch service. It is his legacy that 95% of genuine requirements are serviced within 36 hours. The legacy has been carried on and improved upon by the teams that have succeeded him. Good planning, in-time supplies, exact sizes and good forecasting specially with imported materials, has become a way of life for the supply chain teams now. “97% of these targets are met and we are assessed and rated as per the 36 hour target” says Vivek Kumar, who is heading the Supply Chain at Avery Dennison. He further adds, “Stringent quality control and consistent quality makes us deliver to happy customers!” With the depart of Raj Srinivasan to the USA,Anil Sharmawas appointed to head the Indian operations.
Anil Sharma
Anil Sharma brought in a new wave of professionalism. Building the foundation and establishing the fundamentals from a startup, needs a lot of personal human intervention, which was well delivered by Raj and his team. The company under Anil Sharma gradually started to move from being men driven to systems driven and building up to the next level of expansion and growth. Implementing the systems for order registration, timely delivery, payments collection and addressing customer concerns. All these processes started to become systemized while still maintaining the personal connect. 2011 was an eventful year for Avery Dennison in India. Another 1.5 meter hotmelt adhesive coater was installed at the Pune facility to enhance production capacity. Since they already had a production facility in North in Gurgaon and also in the West at Pune, a need was felt for having a stock point South India to make just-in-time supplies to customers in the south, adhering to the legacy of excellent customer service delivery. A slitting facility was also commissioned in Bangalore in 2011.
Inauguration of Innovation and Knowledge center PUNE
In the same yearAvery Dennison Knowledge centerwas set up in Bangalore. It was largely felt by Anil Sharma and his team that there was a dire need of training in the Indian label industry. There is also an acute shortage of trained manpower in the industry that was steadily growing with increasing population. High numbers of educated young people are coming out of universities getting employment and in turn creating a huge market for retail and eventually labels. According toJitesh MehtaDirector Product development, “This knowledge centre was created to be a brand neutral platform, purely to impart knowledge to converters and to their employees”. In recent times Avery Dennison has helped trained many young boys in collaboration with the Indian label association,LMAIhas also helped some of them with placement in label manufacturing companies. This centre aims to impart skills and not to do any brand promotion.The knowledge center has recently been shifted to Pune because they already had their Research and Development center there. It was synergy to have the Research and Development center and knowledge center at the same place.

With substantial investment made in 2010-11 they had surplus capacity and capabilities in their hands. Avery started to invest in the South Africa and other African markets to expand the sale of their products in these countries. Marketing team was hired locally in these countries while finance and back-end support is handled in India. It is interesting to note that they were the first among the organized global labelstock manufacturing companies who invested in these markets. Avery Dennison has in recent times also endeavored successfully to expand their reach to countries around India selling their products to Srilanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal as well.
In 2014 to expand further and augment its range of products offered, Avery Dennison India installed another coater at Pune. This time, it was an emulsion adhesive coater of 1.50 meter width. With increased manufacturing capacity and capabilities a bigger range of products is now being offered to their customer base. According to Vivek, who heads the supply chain management in South Asia, Avery Dennison’s bulk of the production i.e., about 350-400 SKUs comes out of the Pune facility. Gurgaon plant now complements the total production most of which is rolled out from the Pune plant. Solvent based adhesive products are still imported and sold wherever required. 95% of all products sold by Avery Dennison in India are made in India complying with the Prime Minister’s call to “Make in India”. 20 years ago they were largely reliant on imports and now only 8-10% material is imported, rest is all manufactured in India.
Pankaj Bhardwaj
In 2015 Anil Sharma was elevated to take up larger responsibilities as Vice President and General Manager, South Asia Pacific and Sub Saharan Africa. His team-matePankaj Bhardwaj, became his successor as Commercial Director-South Asia, Labels and Packaging Materials. Later this year in 2017 Pankaj was entrusted with a larger role as Senior Director & General Manager-South Asia at Avery Dennison India Pvt Ltd. Pankaj became a perfect combination of Raj’s legacy of relationship building and Anil’s professionalism. While maintaining close co-operation with converters, most of whom are running family owned businesses, he leads his team to interact with brand owners advising them on decoration, value addition on labels to keeping them updated on the latest trends. Avery Dennison continues to invest in technologies and new business areas likeRFID, specialty tapes, reflective products and sustainable manufacturing. They are also investing time and money in advising printers on new decoration and converting techniques as also helping expansion of the PSA label markets to smaller towns of India.
Pankaj feels that it is good that more labelstock manufacturers are coming into the market. It maybe challenging in view of depleting margins but if that makes the market size to grow, it is welcome. Avery Dennsion looks at India as one of the fastest growing markets and they are willing to continuously invest here. Proof of their commitment is evident from setting up of R&D center, Knowledge Centre, support to LMAI, support to technical workshops and label awards, etc. Adjacent technologies do present a challenge; Shrink sleeves growing at the same rate as PSA labels, IML is a niche not very wide spread and Digital is to be watched. Indulgence in digitally printed label segment is fast becoming an imperative. Despite the market dynamics Avery Dennison India in the last 5-7 years is achieving a CAGR (Compound aggregate growth rate) of double digits.


Recyclability and waste management are industry challenges. As an environmentally consciouslyCorporation, Avery Dennison has published its global sustainability goals. Avery Dennison India is making steady progress to support these goals by having all Indian sites FSC certified and more than 50% paper sourced from FSC certified sources. Also, all Indian sites are more than 99% landfill free.

Company is continually redesigning its products to reduce carbon footprint and promoting 25 mic PET liners given thatpaper liners are largely 60-62 gsm substance and are extremely difficult to recycle. PET is recyclable thereby reducing the impact on environment.

Corporate social responsibility is getting increasing focus for Avery DennisonIndia. Company has multiple programs in the areas of women empowerment, children health and education. Among other programs, Avery Dennison Foundation runs a program by the name of 'Avery Dennison Spirit Of Inventions' in collaboration with six universities by recognizing and rewarding innovative ideas from students in the field of science, engineering and technology.




Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman, Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi August 2017
Printing magazines and publications may reproduce this article giving credit to author.
For advertising on this blog please email toharveersahni@gmail.com

LMAI: Extending membership to interiors of India!

LMAI: Extending membership to interiors of India!

On 9th of December 2017, Label Manufacturers Association of India (LMAI) conducted a “Technical workshop and networking session” at hotel The Lalit, Chandigarh. It was a very successful event attended by almost 100 delegates giving credibility to LMAI’s efforts to extend its membership to smaller towns that are now attracting investment in production of labels.

The event besides delivering knowledge provided opportunity to printers to join the mainstream association with a platform to interact and network with their peers in the industry. The event was sponsored by Avery Dennison India Private Ltd., SMI Coated Products Pvt. Ltd., Flint Group, NBG Printographic Machinery Co. Pvt. Ltd., Provin Technos Pvt Ltd. and HP Inc. and offered an opportunity to them for making presentations to new entrants in nascent areas.

The evening’s first presentation was made by Ankur Joshi Product Manager of Provin Technos Pvt. Ltd. He explained in detail about the Miyakoshi presses offered by them. This was followed by a very thought provoking session by Bhupinder Singh of Avery Dennison. He initially explained how Avery partnered with printers to offer the PS Label solutions engineered to their specific needs.

He then spoke on ground realities and effects of competition in the label industry with emphasis on the imperative need to innovate and decorate their product adding value to the end product such that even if the margin in terms of percentage wise remains the same the quantum of profit gets bigger due to higher value of the end product. He also gave a comparison of PS labels to wet glue and suggested ways to motivate wet glue customers to switch over to PS labels. Shamim Alam of HP Indigo impressed upon the need for change in the label industry to achieve growth. He presented case studies in personalization with digital to achieve success and dwelled on possibilities by going digital. Harshal Mahajan of SMI Coated Products Pvt. Ltd. made a presentation to educate printers on the right selection of face paper, adhesive and liner. He also spoke on the effects of weather, ambient temperature, storage condition and service temperature on labels and label materials. Sailesh Sharma of Flint informed the gathering about upcoming trends in inks. He also explained the negative effects of migration and Flint’s support to customers for low migration printing and converting. He also spoke of Good Manufacturing Practices and benefits of LED UV inks offered by them. Finally Nitin Garg and Kishore of NBG Printographics presented details of the new indigenous full servo flexo press developed and offered by them.

LMAI President Kuldip Goel in his short speech impressed upon printers to invest in capabilities to innovate and create value in their products to attain continued growth. Harveer Sahni, on behalf of LMAI spoke on the path traversed by LMAI, benefits of its membership and the programs conducted by it. LMAI was established 15 years ago by a small group of printers and the association has thereafter grown to over 350 members. LMAI is recognized by global entities like Tarsus, FINAT and TLMI.

It s also a part of L9, a global alliance of world’s leading nine label associations. LMAI organizes technical and networking sessions across various geographical zones of India. These include programs on cost restructuring, GST training and other important issues. Their annual conference has become a must attend event for the label industry. LMAI has partnered with Tarsus and extended their support to Labelexpo India. On the sidelines of next Labelexpo, LMAI will be hosting the LMAI label awards gala evening and the L9 meet where printer members from these global associations are expected to attend and network with Indian printers. LMAI also successfully publish their magazine, “Label Legacy”. The next LMAI Technical Workshop and networking meet is planned to be held early next year in Chennai.

In conclusion Rajesh Nema honorary secretary LMAI thanked the delegates for their presence and also acknowledged the hard work put in and support given by local printer members Aditya Kashyap and Vishal Vohra in organizing this successful event.  The evening ended with networking over cocktails and dinner.

Label Manufacturers Association of India

A-418, Mayuresh Trade Center,Plot no: 04, sector-19, Vashi Turbhe Road,Vashi, Navi mumbai: 400 703

Mob : 08097333995

Web: www.lmai.in

Posted on behalf of LMAI by Harveer Sahni December 2017