Vprint installs fourth Contiweb Dryer

First Ecocool dryer to be installed alongside three Ecoweb dryers

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Using its Contiweb Ecocool dryer, Vprint is now able to produce premium direct mailings
Using its Contiweb Ecocool dryer, Vprint is now able to produce premium direct mailings

Contiweb, a specialist in state-of-the-art technologies for printing, advanced drying and web-handling, announced that Vprint, a leading Belgian print provider with over 80 years’ industrial experience, has invested in a Contiweb Ecocool dryer – it’s fourth Contiweb dryer to date – to improve the quality of its direct mail service.

Joining three Contiweb Ecoweb dryers installed on web offset press lines, the Ecocool system is already proving to strengthen the company’s competitive edge. Vprint customers operating in the retail, mail order and automotive markets have remarked on the improved finish of premium mailings.

According to Thierry Ngoma, plant manager at Vprint, since investing in the dryers, the company is enjoying an increase in business. He explains, “As you can imagine, in a market as saturated as the print arena, quality is everything. When it comes to web offset, drying is a critical component to achieving first-class results. Thankfully, the Contiweb Ecocool is fully compatibility with all our press systems, making it the ideal solution to elevate our jobs to the next level. Beyond this, its seamless integration ensured that we experienced very little downtime; crucial for a company producing three million pieces of direct mail a day.”

Designed to use low temperatures and high air volumes, the Ecocool reduces the negative effects of heating the web and delivers superior drying quality. This results in a high gloss finish with less fibre lifting, ensuring that print providers can meet the strict quality requirements of even the most demanding print buyers.

As the world’s first dryer to feature an integrated chilling section, the Ecocool is designed to eliminate the negative impact of solvent condensation on the web during or after the chilling process. With nine small rollers turning the web at sharper angles, greater surface pressure is created than that produced by traditional chilling modules. This improves heat transfer and minimizes the opportunity for a solvent boundary layer to form. From an output perspective, this allows the web to stretch and prevents wrinkles from forming, resulting in high-quality print.

For us, the Ecocool dryer is a winning solution,” says Ngoma. “With the improvement in quality delivered by the Contiweb dryers, our position as a leading provider of corporate direct mail communications is secure.”

Jennifer N’Guyen, area sales manager at Contiweb adds, “Vprint is a perfect example of how our auxiliary equipment provides the ideal solution for those seeking to improve their print line efficiencies or output. Also, in today’s environmentally conscious society, we are witnessing a growing shift in print providers seeking greener solutions. Engineered to optimize the web offset drying process, our dryers use 50 percent less gases than traditional systems when fitted with integrated pollution control.”

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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