Digital Flexo Plates
Flexographic printing has evolved from being a basic printing
technology to a technically advanced process that can turn out quality prints
comparable to those produced by the best of printing processes. The credit of
this advancement goes to the development of prepress and printing plates.
Prepress is the term that we refer to as the process to make ready the press,
the design layout and transforming the design into data files that will
eventually lead to producing the photopolymer plates to print the files on to
paper or other substrates. A technically strong prepress ensures success in
producing the right kind of printing. Deepanshu Goel, an Alumnus of New Delhi’s
prestigious Hindu College from where he completed his B.Sc. Electronics in
1994, joined his parental business of manufacturing communication cables that
was started by his father 35 years ago. Having been a topper in studies, he was
not comfortable in the cables business and wished to do something different and
more to do with evolving technologies. In 1998, a friend who was having a stack
type flexo press suggested that he start flexo plate making business. Even
though he had no knowledge of flexography yet, Deepanshu quit the cable
manufacturing business in 2001, to start a plate making business.
At that time in 2001, when he did not even know what
was CMYK which stands for "Cyan Magenta Yellow Black" the
four basic colors used for printing color images, with a meager
investment of 35000 Rupees, two employees and himself to help, he started his polymer plate making
business Creative Graphics in East Delhi’s Vishwas Nagar. Those were difficult
days since Deepanshu had no previous knowledge of the process. He acquired
literature to understand the nuances of plate making and got hands on learning
as they progressed. Soon he had to
relocate due to property sealing initiated by the Municipal Corporation Delhi,
for non-permissible commercial activity in residential colonies. They moved
their operations to a 1000 square foot factory in Noida’s Sector 10 from where
they later shifted to Sector 9 in Noida. Mistakes happen when you are indulging
in a technology that is alien to you, he bought machines that were not ideally
suited for flexography and instead were meant for offset printing. Since the
mindset was clearly focused on to flexographic printing plate technology and
not Offset printing, the machines were sold off and new equipment that was
suited for flexo plate making was acquired. In an effort to further educate
himself and enhance his knowledge of plate making Deepanshu acquired literature
published by BASF printing systems Germany which in 2005 became a part of the
Flint group. Technology for the process at that time was not freely available
so he was able to sharpen his skill by reading and practically implementing
what he learnt from the literature. No doubt he made mistakes but those were
taken in his stride to learn the intricacies’ of producing the perfect plates
for flexographic printing.
Until 2008 Creative was making plates manually with help of small
basic machines. Those were struggling days. Learning and finetuning as they
went along, they associated with Flint who supported them in gaining required
knowledge. In 2008 they moved to their own 3000 square foot premises in sector
8 Noida. The same year they bought the “nyloflex® Combi F III” from Flint, a
Compact all-in-one system for back, main and post exposure, washout, drying and
light finishing of flexo plates that would produce consistent quality due to
process automation. Deepanshu Goel’s very first customer was a small flexo
printer followed by printers having small stack type presses making flexible
packaging and catering mostly to snack producers.
The actual break came when he started to
supply metal backed UV coating plates for calendar and brochure manufacturing
to Rajesh Batra lead Surya Print Process New Delhi, this was their take off
point. Creative Graphics’ first Narrow Web flexo label customer was Vijay Jain
led A & A labels New Delhi, who were at that time producing labels for
Modicare. After this there was no looking back and it was just sharpening and
perfecting skills. They also started to diversify into other segments like
corrugated board, flexible packaging, stationery, etc.
besides expanding their reach to other
printers in the fast-growing label industry. The flexo plate business is such
that no single customer is very big, realizing this fact, for Deepanshu
expanding customer base was an imperative for growing his business.
In 2008 yet again Creative Graphics acquired another 3000 square
feet premises also in Noida’s Sector 8 taking their total shopfloor area to
6000 square feet. Once the economic slowdown of 2008-2010 ended, label business
which was growing even during the recessionary period started looking up
furthermore. In 2012-13 there was a rush of flexo press installations and it
proved beneficial for the photopolymer plate business and helped Creative Graphics
to grow. Added to this there was a substantial shift within the pharma, liquor,
lube oil and other FMCG industries from wet glue to self-adhesive labels. Then
in 2009 they bought and installed Kodak ThermoFlex Mid II Platesetter that helps
turn prepress into a controlled, digital manufacturing process and enhance the
quality of flexographic printing, reduce cycle times, and improve process
control by eliminating variables in the plate manufacturing process. Having
firmly established themselves in narrow web flexo label business, in 2012 they
bought the Esko Spark digital imager followed by installing yet another
processing line and a series of equipment from Dupont.
Once he was fully settled and operational in the flexographic
plate making business, Deepanshu Goel decided to drive growth into his business,
both organic and inorganic. He brought his total business under one company
that is Creative Graphic Solutions India Private Limited. In 2017 he went on an
expansion and acquisition spree by first starting operations in Mumbai then
starting the Hyderabad unit that he has put under management of his brother and
then acquiring the Nagesh Bakshi lead Chennai based Colordot. In 2018 he
started his Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) unit bringing the total number of manufacturing
units to five. Being in a service industry where time is the essence for a
printer to cater to needs of large customers, he tries to be multilocational
and near his label printer customers. In 2019 he moved his main unit in Noida
to an 800 square meter plot in Noida’s sector 58 with 24000 square foot
shopfloor. In first week of December 2020, he will be commencing production at
his 6
th facility at Ahmedabad. Creative Graphics is presently
working out of a total 50,000 square feet shop floor area across its five units
in India employing 280 people. While in this pandemic year the growth has been
flat yet in preceding times, they have continuously registered 15-20% annual
growth. Since as mentioned earlier in this article that a large and ever-increasing
customer base is an imperative in driving this business of photo polymer plates
to higher levels, Creative Graphics has done quite well. Total number of
customers has reached between 700-800 out of which 250-300 are from the narrow
web labels industry which is the biggest segment of their business.
Deepanshu Goel’s wife Sarika is a home maker, his elder son
Tanul is a budding cricketer studying in class 12 and the younger son Utsav is
in class 6., both are studying at Pathways School. When asked whether his sons
will join his business Deepanshu is clear in his mind and says, “I cannot say,
they will decide for themselves as I did for myself. Times are such that decisions
must emanate out of interest and passion to achieve success”.
Looking at future Creative is trying build capabilities to
project themselves as solution providers. While upgrading themselves with
timely investment in technology to enhance their capabilities, they are also
trying support growth of flexo label industry by providing sponsorship to
industry related knowledge delivering events. When asked how he sees himself in
5 years, he says “we strive to double our turnover in maybe 2 to 3 years with
both organic and inorganic growth”. On
the evolution of different print technologies entering the label industry, he
is not worried and insists that all will grow. Market share may get divided but
by the natural growth in demand, volumes will still grow and there will be
enough business for all. In fact, he is
confident that flexo is evolving as a substitute for other printing
technologies. He does get a little pensive when we talk of sustainability and
environmental concerns as most plates after being used up either go to landfills or
are incinerated. For this he feels the larger producers of plate material who
develop the chemistries are the right people to address this problem.
Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New
Delhi November 2020
Printing magazines are
permitted to reproduce this article only by giving credit to the author and
mentioning the blog address http://harveersahni.blogspot.com
Digital Flexo Plates
