Case study – Pentaflex Films in Ahmedabad
In 2022, after over xx years as a leading Indian manufacturer of PE picture show for flexible packaging, Ahmedabad-based Pentaflex Films decided to add together printing to its portfolio past taking the flexo route in a gravure dominated market. Within a yr, a new Bobst wide-spider web CI flexo 8-colour press was installed in a state of the art plant.
And in two years of functioning, Pentaflex took the Silver with Loftier Honors in the Kodak Global Flexo Innovation Awards. (In early 2019, Kodak divested its flexo plate business to a private equity investor who formed a visitor called Miraclon that now develops, manufactures sells and supports the Flexcel NX engineering science consisting of the imaging and processing device and the plates.)
Pentaflex'southward Anand Patel acknowledges that he and his fellow directors took a risk. He explains why it was a very calculated risk, "Flexo is only well-nigh 15% of the FMCG marketplace that we focus on, and most of that is dairy packaging. The rest of the market is largely gravure, so there's a huge opportunity to win brands over to flexography — and we have some actually serious factors working in our favor."
Push for sustainability
An argument for make owners and packaging converters to have a serious look at Flexo is the Indian regime's policy regarding its waste control order, which is looking at sustainability and recycling of flexible packaging. Patel explains, "Many countries have adopted Extended Producer Responsibility, which makes consumer brands pay attention to what happens to their products after apply — in item, textile recovery and recycling. In Bharat we're at present catching up, which is placing significant pressure on brand owners to put sustainability front end and center of production development. This will be good news for flexo."
Patel says Pentaflex did its homework, "We researched the current consumption of plastics and film in India, and how this would grow in line with increases in people'due south disposable income — which translates into more spending on consumer goods. Add together that to the drive for sustainability, and the outlook for flexo is really positive. I wouldn't exist surprised to see a sudden boom in flexo in the next two or three years, possibly by 40% earlier settling down to steady incremental increases."
Low-hanging fruit
Confident as Pentaflex was of the potential, the company took its starting time steps equally a flexo printer in the market it knew best, dairy. Since flexo was already established in the segment, the discussions were more than straightforward and gave Pentaflex the conviction to invest in flexo. "In the past, flexo had a bad printing on bug similar printability and quality, simply yous tin can trace that to older technology such as stacked presses. Our Bobst CI press [an MW125F] is a unlike generation of auto altogether, and the word is spreading," says Patel.
The second lesson was that a huge opportunity existed for CI flexo in the contrary-printed laminate market. "Opposite-press with flexo was nearly unheard of in the region," recalls Patel. "However, by combining the Bobst CI flexo with the Kodak Flexcel NX technology for flexo platemaking, we could offer brands much higher quality in the reverse-printed space with the added advantage that the pack is recyclable."
The visitor's winning entry of flexible packaging for salt in the flexo innovation awards demonstrated this proposition. Salt is traditionally packaged in a PET+PE laminate, printed on gravure for reasons of printability and quality. The brand owner wanted a sustainable replacement, and Pentaflex proposed a PE+PE laminated structure, a 100% recyclable culling, with similar mechanical backdrop and shelf life. The well-produced new pack was hard to distinguish from the gravure equivalent. There was also some price-benefit in the handling of packaging waste.
Considering how new Pentaflex was to flexo, information technology was a significant achievement, and one that involved a caste of trial and error, according to Patel, "We put a lot of fourth dimension and endeavour into trying out new applications, and nosotros're not shy about experimenting. Merely we're fortunate to have a high level of technical expertise running throughout the company, from the directors to the rest of the team. It's our USP."
Work to exist done
3 years on this expertise is behind increasing success in bringing more than gravure work over to Flexo. Recent contract wins include a locally-based manufacturer of ready-to-eat and instant-mix products taking the flexo route in a major rebranding of its products. "Nosotros have no problem showing prospects that flexo produces quality impress," says Patel, "simply that's not the only gene in the decision to switch. We accept to recall that brands and their printer-converters have a heavy investment in cylinders for existing jobs. Hopefully, we tin become in front of them when they change designs, only that doesn't happen very oftentimes."
When Pentaflex does get to the table, he says, they can make a strong case. "The Indian market place is very cost-conscious, and throughout the supply concatenation, everyone is trying to proceeds margin. So the cost of gravure cylinders is a cistron, particularly for brands with lots of SKUs or frequent design changes. Flexo plates are cheaper, of course. Faster time-to-marketplace is another powerful argument for an FMCG brand with multiple products in different sizes, where waiting a week for a gravure cylinder can be an upshot. Flexo offers quicker turnaround for platemaking and the printing so that we can handle shorter runs without a drop in quality."
Finally, there'due south Flexo's substrate flexibility. "The astonishing thing about Flexo is the fantastic quality, whatever the substrate. Y'all tin can surface-print on PE, reverse-print on PET, surface-impress on breathable paper or aluminum foil, or just paper. We're doing it all."
While Pentaflex is confident that Flexo is the future, Patel concludes that how quickly it arrives will depend on cooperation between all the stakeholders – "There is an enormous diverseness of potential jobs out there, some more challenging than others. It takes a lot of expertise to join the right anilox, the right dot structure, and the right ink. Going forward, all of us need to work closely to make the transition happen."
This article is based on inputs from Miraclon and edited by Naresh Khanna
Source: https://packagingsouthasia.com/packaging-production/case-study-pentaflex-films-in-ahmedabad/
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