Encana to invest in third press

Managing partner Mohit Malhotra has been a distributor of paper and board from ITC, Balllarpur Industries, Khanna Industries and Devpriya Industries. He is also distributor for Technova plates, chemicals and DIC inks since 2003. He decided to diversify to printing pressure-sensitive labels in January 2015 owing to the fast-growing Indian market and attended two editions of Labelexpo Europe before making an investment.

Today, Encana’s premises, spread across an area of 30,000 sq ft, houses a 10in, 9-color Mark Andy Performance Series P5 press and a 13in, 10-color Mark Andy Performance Series P5 press; three Rotoflex VSI 330 machines; Stork rotary screen and cold foil stamping unit; a die-cutting machine equipped for sheeting, hot foiling and embossing; and plate cleaner and anilox cleaner from Shandilya Sons.

Encana constantly upgrades its systems by expanding tooling library and is planning to get an ink proofing system to stay ahead of the competition. While the company has outsourced pre-press, it is looking at investing in platemaking equipment too. ‘That’s a high margin operation and plates are a huge cost so we would eventually like to do it ourselves,’ said Malhotra.

With these investments, Encana is growing at 100 percent year-on-year and is already one of the biggest consumers of metallic substrates in the country.

On the company’s plans to purchase a new press, Malhotra said: ‘It could either be another UV flexo or an intermittent rotary press for short run jobs. While the first press is running at 100 percent capacity, the second has reached 50 percent capacity. Our focus is on long run jobs but we’d like to service clients better and profitably with short runs too using the third press. We looked at digital label printing presses but realized we needed a different business model for short run jobs. At least 10 to 15 jobs in short runs are required every day to make it viable. For my business, I don’t see buying a very expensive press right now because it’s tough to get the return on investment. Brand owners don’t pay extra for having an expensive press or a certain brand. It is good to get a press that performs well and is serviced well.’

Turning to Flexo Image Graphics (FIG), distributor of Mark Andy and Rotoflex machines in the Indian sub-continent, Malhotra said: ‘We are happy with the service, presses and the company. FIG offers good and prompt customer service and are here in no time if we ever need support.’

Gourav Roy, managing director at FIG, added: ‘We understand the cost calculation of a converter and the return of investment. This is one of the most critical aspects that a service provider likes us to know and we constantly work to shape up the technicians and the engineers to support the converters.’

Encana prints labels for primarily FMCG companies, liquor industry, pharmaceutical and pesticide businesses. It has a mixed bag of both big as well as medium size companies that have huge volumes and normally start printing long run jobs at 20,000 linear meters.

The company supplies labels to brands that retail in overseas markets. It will soon starting exporting labels to the Middle East too. ‘With the International airport coming to Chandigarh, we will air lift labels straight to the Middle East,’ said Malhotra.