Becker India’s vacuum and pneumatic equipment at Printpack

The key ancillary supplier gets 64% of new product inquiries at the show

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Becker India
(Middle) Milind Bhalerao, chief executive officer, with his team representing Becker India for the first time at PrintPack India 2022. Photo Becker India

Pune-based Becker India, a vacuum and pneumatic equipment manufacturer, participated in PrintPack India 2022 for the first time after becoming fully operational in the country. Becker’s headquarter is in Wuppertal, Germany, and it has 21 subsidiaries globally including four in Germany. Apart from the products and expertise, it offers through these, it has many agencies with highly trained engineering services.

Becker produces screw, claw, and radial vacuum pumps, roots booster pumps, rotary vane compressors, and side channel blowers. Becker has an annual turnover of Euros 200 million. Its Indian subsidiary is headquartered in Bhukum, Pune has a service center, testing facility, demo cum training room, and warehouse.

At the recently concluded PrintPack India 2022, Becker India displayed vacuum/pressure combined pumps and original spare parts mainly for paper and board feeders and special applications in printing machines, bookbinding, lamination, stapling, collating, and folding. The company has great domain expertise and technology for printing and binding and packaging converting equipment, and the paper converting industry.

As digitalization impacts the industry, the integration of devices that produce digital signals or information in machines enables the intelligent use of the data generated when it is shared over the network or cloud. This level of connectivity delivers transparency from the components and machines and brings field-level observation, work, and even preventive maintenance to the cloud. Thus, Becker’s new and technological-driven vacuum pumps are not only energy-efficient, compact, and silent, but their connectivity maximizes production output and minimizes maintenance costs.

Fixing, pick and place and other applications

Vacuum pumps and compressors play a part in vacuum fixing, like fixing or firmly positioning printing plates in exposure units and CtP systems and fixing printing and paper products on cutting tables and screen printing machines. Vacuums and blowers also play an essential role in pick and place – feeding and transporting paper sheets in offset presses and also in blowing and ejecting – in fanning out and singling the paper sheets in feeders for movement and processing, and for the generation of air cushions to protect printed products.

“A vacuum pump is the heart of any machine. Knowing about the most reliable product for this purpose is essential, which gives you peace of mind. People are investing in more reliable and good quality products, and it’s not only based on price criteria. Importance is given to improving the process and efficiency and bringing in more and more automation,” said Milind Bhalerao, chief executive officer of Becker India.

At PrintPack India 2022, the company received a positive response from visitors. “We have received an overwhelming response from the visitors. Among the inquiries at the show – approximately 64%, were for the new products that we displayed. The inquiries responses will be closed very soon,” he added.

Bhalerao also noted that when the Covid-19 pandemic struck the global township disastrously, Becker too faced many supply chain challenges. Freight was delayed at times by three to four months, and there was a sharp increase in transportation costs.

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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