Graphic India of Dimapur gets a Ricoh Pro 8300S

Ideal press for crisp black and white print documents

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Graphic
Suresh Bilala, owner of Graphic India, with the Ricoh Pro 8300S.

Monotech Systems, a leading machine manufacturer and solution provider for the printing and packaging industry, recently installed a Ricoh Pro 8300S black and white digital production press at Graphic India in Dimapur in Nagaland. Monotech is Ricoh’s authorized distributor in India.

Graphic India in Dimapur is an old and popular reprographic shop located strategically on the city’s busy uptown PWD Road. Recalling the early days of the shop, Suresh Bilala, proprietor of Graphic India, says, “My shop is 27 years old. I started it as a stationery shop installed with a Xerox machine for photocopy service.” He said he coined the name Graphic India only after they started digital printing with a Konica Minolta AccurioPress. 

On choosing the new Ricoh Pro 8300S black and white digital production press, Bilala said they were desperately looking for a high-speed monochrome production press for a high-volume black and white job. “Our quest for the machine ended when we came across the Ricoh Pro 8300S, which Monotech Systems supplied to many other reprographic shops in the region.”

“The Ricoh Pro 8300S is an ideal press for crisp black and white print documents we supply to government offices, private companies and students all over Nagaland and in some parts of neighboring Assam. We are satisfied with the uninterrupted productivity of this compact production digital press. Following the installation of this press, we are really capable of boosting both production speed and production volume.”

When it comes to features and competency, the Pro 8300S offers a superb resolution of 2400 x 4800 dpi and is capable of running at a speed of 96 pages per minute (ppm). This digital press can print on lightweight to heavyweight stocks up to 350 gsm. It can also take up diverse stocks such as NTR, synthetic media and oversized sheets.

Backed by a team of 12 printing and production boys, Graphic India is a cozy commercial printing corner for customers rushing from all over Dimapur and other towns of Nagaland. “Most of our customers are from Dimapur, Kohima and some neighboring towns of Assam such as Golaghat, Diphu and others. Students from schools, colleges and vocational training institutes from these towns form a major chunk of our client list,” says Bilala.

Bilala said the Ricoh Pro 8300S has taken the business of Graphic India to another level. He said they were happy to partner with Monotech Systems.”

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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