Kerala, one of India’s two states with a huge leftist influence and CPM trade unions has few manufacturing organizations that have become successful business enterprises. Though its residents have high skill and integrity they often find jobs outside the state and can be seen migrating en masse to offshore locations like Dubai, Saudi Arabia and to the US and Europe. The Kerala Master Printer’s Association (KMPA), Print Miracle Expo 2014, showcased one major manufacturing unit that produces postpress machines for books in Kerala but sells two-third of its perfect binding machines across the country while also exporting to the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
Precision manufacturing
Started in the late 1980s KC Sanjeev’s manufacturing unit, Intimate Machines, which produces India’s best known postpress equipment, is perhaps an exception to Kerala’s manufacturing ethos. All its manufacturing is done at three Keralabased production plants in Trivandrum, Chengannur and Thodupuzha. The units provide employment to nearly 1,000 people and have provided 280 installations of the Welbound Worldwide postpress book binding equipment. A fourth unit that produces castings for the binding machines called Prism Castings is located nearby at Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu – one of the largest industrial hubs in the country.
At the Print Miracle show at Kochi, Welbound displayed not only its wellknown binding and stitching machines but also its recent entry in aerospace components for the GSLV Mark III model manufactured for the Indian Space Research Organization. A part of India’s frugal Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan mission, Welbound not only designs sophisticated aerospace components but also manufactures them. Welbound is perhaps one of the few postpress equipment suppliers which has the capability to enter the complex and precision field of aerospace engineering and one that has contributed to ISRO’s low-cost and highly effective launch vehicles.
Diploma folding machine
At the Print Miracle show, Pramod Sekhar, product manager, demonstrated Welbound’s new generation 6Z3X folder with six buckles. The PLC controlled machine enables various folding formats up to a maximum of six parallel folds and three cross folds. Creasing, perforation and slitting attachments are provided before each electronically controlled servo-driven folding knife. The machine can accept third-party attachments and can be fitted with an optional gluing system for online application while folding to produce the booklets. Apart from the Diploma folding machine range Welbound also provides the high capacity GUK folding machine range that include pocket folders and combination folders.
Welbound Worldwide produces a wide range of manual, semi-automatic and automatic paper folding, trimming, cutting, signature gathering, saddle wire stitching, hard cover binding and perfect binding machines for both the small and the big book printers. It also makes the Pickwel rotary gatherer and the Wohlenberg Sprinter i gatherer. However, the most popular of its dozen plus products are the Welbound perfect binding machines that include the PUR binder as well as the single clamp binding, multi clamp binding, in-line binding, saddle stitching, and hard cover binding. “The perfect binding machines are not only popular in India but also abroad and are exported to a dozen nations,” says Sekhar. Welbound is also developing a machine to integrate offline postpress operations including gathering, perfect binding and the 3- knife trimmer into a single in-line system which is expected to be ready early next year.
