Progressive Printing’s third RMGT press in 2 years

Surat Open House showcases the prowess of RMGT 760

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Printing
Print service providers at the Open House

On 28 June 2017, Surat based Progressive Printing Press celebrated its 50th anniversary with an Open House organized in association with Provin Technos, the sole distributor of RMGT presses in India. The Open House also marked the celebration of the recently installed 5-color RMGT 760 sheetfed offset press plus coater at Progressive Printing Press. This is the third RMGT press installed by the company in a span of two years. The joint Open House at Progressive Printing’s unit was followed by dinner at The Gateway Hotel by Taj Athwalines. The event was graced by top management from Ryobi MHI including Keiji Katayama, senior vice president and T Ishibashi, India incharge at Ryobi MHI Graphic Technology from Japan along with over 50 print service providers (PSPs) based in Ahmedabad, Surat and Baroda.

Addressing the attendees at the Open House, Vinay Kaushal, director at Provin Technos, said, “Surat—the silk city of the nation—has made RMGT a successful brand. We have created history by installing 11 presses just in over two years here. By the end of this year, we hope to install a few more in Surat. Today, the occasion is special for two reasons— one, the installation of the third RMGT press at Progressive Printing Press in a span of two years, which is a remarkable thing, and two, Progressive has completed their 50th year of operation.”

Artificial intelligence for color setup

At the event, the new 5-color RMGT 760 press was shown running next to the 4-color RMGT 960 press. The RMGT 760 is a fully loaded, highly automated offset press with features like automatic print density control, advanced dampening system for water and ink balance, and fully automatic plate changing system which can be combined with Smart-Makeready function so that the blanket cleaning, preset inking and test printing can be performed automatically for increased efficiency. The prepress data is analyzed by the PPC Server III to calculate the image area ratio. Based on image area ratio data, the PCS-G printing control system automatically selects the conversion curve for each color, sets the opening of ink fountain keys and controls the ink rollers. 

Artificial intelligence is a unique feature of RMGT, using which customers can carry out profiling of their jobs without having a color bar on top of every job,” said Abhijeet Kolhatkar, general manager – sales at Provin Technos. At the Open House, visitors also got a first-hand view of how the RMGT 760 press is capable of doing complete job changeover in just seven minutes.

The RMGT 760 comes with options for installing IR or LED lamp at the delivery unit. “A significant advantage of the RMGT 760 is that it is energy efficient. Once the machine is in running mode, it consumes only approximately 60% of the starting load, which is 18KW,” informed Kolhatkar.

2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India

Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.

The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry. While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.

The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.

Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.

Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.

Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.

– Naresh Khanna

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