The flexo press manufacturer is upbeat about the Middle-East market, and is scaling up its technology to break into CI Flexo and Roto Gravure markets. Nicola Lombardi and Ranesh Bajaj share their thoughts with Ben Daniel
Italy-based Lombardi Converting Machinery’s flexo journey in this part of the world began with Vinsak, the India-based company with operations in Middle East. The partnership with Vinsak first started for the Indian market, where Lombardi’s director Nicola Lombardi says, has borne great results thus far. There have been more than 20 installations of Lombardi flexo presses in India.
For Lombardi the Vinsak partnership in Middle East too has seen good success. There are two installations of the Lombardi Flexoline and the next Lombardi installation, a Synchroline flexo press, is expected soon. “This partnership is very important for us. We support Vinsak’s presence in the Middle East, which I think has been very reactive,” says Lombardi.
The Synchroline flexo press, for Lombardi, has been one of the most requested press, mainly because of its servo and gearless technology. The to-be installed Synchroline will be going to a converter, which company’s name Lombardi did not reveal, will now become a showcase customer for Synchroline in the Middle East. “That’s another important point of strength for Lombardi and Vinsak together,” says a beaming Lombardi.
RANESH BAJAJ ON DIGITAL LABEL PRESSES
Based in Brescia, a north Italian city, Lombardi Converting Machinery, the company specialises in narrow-web flexographic printing machine manufacturing. It has sold around 1300 machines worldwide.
Besides, convention flexo presses, the company has developed a hybrid press, a combination of flexo and digital, in partnership with digital print specialists, Domino. The company is also working on a brand new solution with other partners. “Going digital solves only print part of it. For all labels and packaging, print is 30% of the job and finishing is 70%. The only thing you solve with digital now is to reduce the cost of your flexo-plate,” says Ranesh Bajaj, managing director at Vinsak. “Conversion, embellishments and foils are all analogue jobs.”
Bajaj is of the opining that there’s still some time before digital in colour is fully ready. “Monochrome solutions, as we see, like versioning, barcodes are all picking up well.”
Gaining momentum
The Lombardi and Vinsak collaboration started some three years ago, and the number of installations reveal that the partnership has gathered a lot of momentum. “In terms of market share in India and in the Middle East, we are also among the top two-three big flexo press suppliers,” says Ranesh Bajaj, managing director at Vinsak.
Going forward, Vinsak is planning to focus on three-four products now. A new flexo press with flatbed die-cutting for cartons is in the offing.
Bajaj says, “We actually want to enter the carton market in a strong way in bigger widths of 500-600-700mm, so that we can offer solutions for high-volume cartons.”
Vinsak is also eying the Roto-Gravure packaging print segment with Lombardi flexo presses, where the press manufacturer is building a new Invicta Press with a width of 850mm, which can also be customised upto 1,000mm width.
Bajaj says, “We want to take on the CI flexo and the Roto Gravure markets, offering an alternative to current converters where they can do all their short- and medium-run brand jobs, or even like medium- to long-run jobs in an inline flexo press versus a CI flexo. It will be much easier to operate, more competitive to buy and will still be a multi-substrate press. You are not stuck with one press tomorrow if your market changes.”
The secret of success
A good technology combined with intuitive software can always be a perfect recipe for success.
“This combination of technology and software has worked for us. It has meant that the operator friendliness of the equipment is very high,” explains Bajaj.
Add to Vinsak’s marketing skills and service support, and it becomes a 360 degree approach to business. “We bring the right technology to the right customer and then back it up with good service,” says Bajaj. “If you see, Lombardi produced the Bravo, which is the first inline fladbed screen printing unit, and then it created the Toro flatbed hot foil system and a hologram unit, they are enhancement units, which bring value to our customers.”
Lombardi adds that his company has now developed a new semi-rotary die-cutter, which it will push like it did for Bravo and the Toro. “We are waiting of course for the Labelexpo Europe in Brussels, where we will show all our technological potential from the finishing solutions to the flexible packaging solutions of our Invicta and the Synchroline presses.”
For Lombardi, the secret of his company’s success is the R&D and the technological skills, which helps them develop new machines. “We invest a lot in developing best solutions for the market; and together with Vinsak’s marketing skills, we are showcasing it in all major events and trade shows. All this together helped us to obtain this result,” concluded Lombardi.