Nilpeter sets up manufacturing joint venture in India

Nilpeter is to manufacture flexo presses in India in a joint venture project with its current sales and service partner, Proteck Machinery. The joint venture, named Nilpeter India, will manufacture flexo servo presses with a similar specification to the Nilpeter FB-line machine, with auxiliaries such as rotary screen and cold- and hotfoil stamping. Nilpeter hopes to have the first Indian-built press on its stand at Tarsus' India Label Show in New Delhi this December.

Proteck is a manufacturing and distribution company headquartered in Chennai. As well as offering sales and technical support services for Nilpeter in India, the company acts as agent and parts manufacturer for a number of other press and equipment manufacturers, including Mitsubishi.

Commenting on the decision to start manufacturing in India, Peter Eriksen, executive assistant at Nilpeter, said: 'We believe the potential of the Indian market is huge. Nilpeter is at full capacity in both our US and Danish manufacturing sites and the Indian market will require a high number of label presses in the near future. This calls for producing in a new location with the required capacity, and why not locally, when this, in addition, brings us closer to our customers - which we consider very important.'

The Indian-built presses are targeted for sale to Indian label converters, but in the longer term Nilpeter will consider exporting to other Asian markets. The Indian manufacturing operation will build on the lessons learned from Nilpeter's Brazilian manufacturing joint venture. 'In many ways we will duplicate that operation,' says Peter Eriksen.

There will be an extensive exchange of technical staff between Proteck in Chennai and Nilpeter's North American manufacturing plant. In the future, Eriksen says that Nilpeter is likely to carry out more IT and software-related research and development in India.

The joint venture manufacturing announcement follows a number of FB-line installations in the Indian market, one of which is at Ajanta Packaging's Daman plant.