Ricoh India has met with stupendous success in the Pune market in the past couple of years.The company has become the leader in Maharashtra Second biggest commercial center with close to 80% market share in the short-run digital printing press segment.The growth in the city’s commercial activities, especially in real estate and information technology, have fueled demand for short-run printing jobs.The short-run demand growth has attracted new players as well as traditional offset printers to the digital printservice arena. With the continuous expansion of its Pune installation base,Ricoh installed two more production machines in the city this February.
The first of the two installations took place at Impression Graphics, a traditional commercial offset print house. Before buying the Ricoh Pro C7100 4-color press, Impressions used a second hand Ryobi 4-color press for the past year. Before the Ryobi installation it used a couple of smaller locally manufactured offset presses. “We were a traditional offset printer for many years but in the last couple of years many of our customers were coming up with short-run jobs which we were not able to take on. Then last year we started thinking about investing in a digital press and finally decided to go for Ricoh as we received very good feedback about their products from existing customers in Pune,” says Mangesh Dhomade, owner of Impression Graphics.
During the one month that the Pro C7100 has been in operation, the average daily print impressions are about 1,300 to 1,500, which Dhomade expects would rise to 3,000 in a couple of months. He is also looking to buy a monochrome digital press, most likely from Ricoh, by the end of the year and also to add a full-fledged finishing department to offer value added finishing services such as lamination and UV coating.
Ricoh Pro 8100 at X Point
The second Pune installation in February 2016 was at X Point, an existing Ricoh customer. The digital print service provider has owned a Pro Short-run digital print continues to boom Two new Ricoh installations in Pune Mangesh Dhomade, owner of Impression Graphics. Photo IPP C651 color press since last March. This year it bought a monochrome production press, the Ricoh Pro 8100.
“When we were planning for our color digital press we did a lot of research and went for demo sessions across the country and then settled for Ricoh. However, for the monochrome press we really did not look anywhere else. Ricoh was our first and only choice because of the experience we have had with the Pro C651. The best part of working on a Ricoh is that we have reduced wastage to almost zero,” says Ghanshyam Ganatra, who manages operations at X Point.
The C8100 has already printed more than 2 lakh impressions in one month or so while the C651 has printed over 6 lakh impressions in eleven months. X Point is now planning to invest in wide format inkjets and will be soon buying a latex wide format press as well as a flatbed press. “We already have customers in the wide format segment but those jobs are being outsourced. With the new presses we want to have in-house operations so that we have more control on time and quality than we currently have.” Ganatra says.
