Nairobi-headquartered Icons Printers, one of Kenya’s largest book printing companies, is headed by Milo Narayan Mishra, known as a print industry icon of the African continent. For its post-press requirements, the printer has tied up with Mumbai-based Bindwel – installing seven offline machines, including four Freedom 4K 12 clamp offline binders, Trimit trimmers, and a full-fledged inline solution, the Bindline 5K.
Known for establishing India’s largest manufacturer of web offset machines, Manugraph, in the African market, Milo Mishra later ventured into providing printing services. Based in the Kenyan capital, Mishra leads his group through two daughter companies – Icons Printers Ltd and Prints Arts Ltd. Collectively, they are one of the largest book printing companies in East Africa.
Multiple web offset machines of varying cut-offs – from Manugraph and SigMarq – form the pillars of his printing business. The covers are printed using 4 color sheet feds from Komori. The company has a Horizon Offline 12 station gatherer, and a battery of sewing machines from Muller Martini and Meccanotecnica, the makers of Aster. The group also has a dedicated plant to make corrugated boxes needed to ship books.
Milo Mishra has personally overseen the procurement of machines from Bindwel as technology is the forte of this printing technologist who donned the hat of an engineer and sales head before venturing into print production. He says he is more at home with Indian machines compared to European products.
The Bindline supplied to the integrated book printer in Nairobi has a 16-station Signa Gatherer, and can run offline or as inline.
“For perfect binding, we have been a consistent partner for the Icons group. They are happy with our machines and service and helped us at times by agreeing to longer delivery schedules. Their commitment to customer satisfaction is something to learn from and we have always done our best to support them,” says Mayur Bharate, who heads exports for Bindwel.
Most of the books made by Icon Printers are thread-sewn. The printer uses the Bindwel BBF5K book block feeder to feed them into the Freedom 5K perfect binder and a long conveyor to be fed into a Trimit 30C three-knife trimmer.
The complete line was installed with operational support from the Bindwel team led by Rijo Pappachan, a senior engineer with Bindwel, around the end of 2023. The first level of support is provided by Bindwel’s team based in Dubai and Nairobi.
The books printed by the Icons- Prints Arts group are mainly for the educational segment, covering both the government and private sectors in East Africa. Kenya is one of the rare countries in Africa that has achieved self-sufficiency in printing books for domestic consumption, and business leaders such as Milo Mishra have a key role to play in this growth.
Bindwel has made steady progress in exports, supplying its products to customers overseas. Recently, Tigran Mets, one of the largest and oldest printing houses in Armenia, selected Bindwel’s Trimit30C as its latest three-knife trimmer, making it one of the newest customers from outside India to choose this technology. This decision follows its installation of the Freedom 4.5K 12 clamp perfect binder in 2023 for the production of educational books.
