RMGT to add third building for sheetfed presses at Fuchu City

Demand for RMGT sheetfed offset presses resumes upward curve

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The third press manufacturing building at Fuchu is a single-story building with total ground area 4,399 square meters and is scheduled to be completed in October 2023 Photo RMGT
The third press manufacturing building at Fuchu is a single-story building with total ground area 4,399 square meters and is scheduled to be completed in October 2023 Photo RMGT

RMGT the joint venture created by Ryobi and Mitsubishi to combine their sheetfed offset press manufacturing in 2014, is running to capacity as Indian customers have discovered over the past year. Demand for RMGT presses especially in longer configurations and larger sheet sizes in the developed markets in Japan, Europe and the US, have often meant longer delivery times for Indian printers. Nevertheless in the current financial year at least five RMGT presses will be installed by Indian commercial and packaging printers.

At the time of the recent IGAS event in Tokyo, the news came that RMGT is adding a third building for press manufacture at its Fuchu City headquarters, in Hiroshima prefecture. The site also contains the Ryobi manufacturing plant for automative castings and other metal products. The third building for building presses will add 4,400 square meters of production space and is to be completed by October 2023.

RMGT is in its ratio of resources to press units perhaps the leanest sheetfed offset press manufacturing company in the industry. Currently 60% of the larger presses are being partly produced in the old Mitsubishi factory in Hiroshima. This production will shift to the new building as it is completed next year.

At the third manufacturing plant, RMGT plans to accommodate new assembling tools, such as large cranes mainly for the assembly of large sheet-fed offset printing presses. By expanding the number of factories adjacent to the current 1st and 2nd plants, RMGT says it will integrate all the plants’ functions together to optimize the total production system and increase efficiencies.

We spoke with Vinay Kaushal of Provin Technos, RMGT’s Indian distributor last week who explained that the press manufacturing lines at Fuchu are running at full capacity and even over capacity. He added that the company is keen to bring down the delivery time of its presses. RMGT continues to gain traction in the commercial printing and packaging markets with its automation and productivity enhancing features.

RMGT IGAS 2022-nc
Akshay Kaushal, sales director, (left) and Vinay Kaushal, director (right), both from RMGT’s Indian distributor Provin Technos; with Toshiyuki Ishibashi, group leader for RMGT’s international sales and marketing in the centre
Photo Nessan Cleary

In India too, the first highly configured packaging press, a 7-color plus coater with LED interdeck curing has been sold to HBD Packaging in Greater Noida. In the commercial space two 8-color perfecting presses have already been installed at leading book printing exporters, at Thomson Press in Faridabad and the second at Multivista in Chennai which will be inaugurated on 22 December 2022. This is Multivista’s second 8-color RMGT perfector – the first was installed since 2018.

The news of RMGT’s expansion in manufacturing confirms that the sheetfed offset press market is resilient with emerging economies still having great demand for printed cultural products. Secondly, it could be an indication of the company taking some market share from the other four major offset press manufacturers.

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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