At Labelexpo India 2018, Esko announced four CDI sales. While the first three sales came in on Day Three of the show, the fourth came in on Day Four. Delhi-based Abdos Lamitubes, one of the largest lamitube manufacturers in India, ordered a CDI Spark 2530 enabled with HD Flexo. The second CDI order was from Noida-based Uflex which invested in India’s second CDI Crystal 5080 XPS and CDI Spark 4260 enabled HD Flexo Pixel+. This was followed by Hyderabad-based Digiflex which invested in its second flexo prepress line Esko CDI Spark 5080.
On Day Four, Bengaluru-based Sai Enterprises placed an order for a CDI Spark 4260 flexo imager. This was Sai’s third imager. The company already has two Esko CDI 4835 flexo plate imagers installed in 2011 and 2016 respectively. Neelakandan Gopalakrishnan, CEO, Sai Enterprises, said, “We already have two mid sized machines. However, to tap the flexible and corrugation markets, big-sized plates are required. That is why, we have invested in this 42 x 60 inches machine for our plant in Bangaluru.”
The installation at Sai Enterprises is expected to be completed by February 2018. At present, the company’s productivity is about 250 to 300 square meter every month. After the installation of the new machine, Gopalakrishnan is hopeful of increasing the productivity by another 50%. Gopalakrishnan shared that Sai Enterprises has plans to start production at its recently acquired plant in Tripur, and hence one of the existing CDIs would be shifted to this plant.
Meanwhile, Hyderabad-based Digiflex already has a Kodak Flexcel NX for platemaking. According to Muralidhar Nalli, managing director, Digiflex, the new investment will help expand its client portfolio. The CDI Spark 5080 offers automated plate loading and semi-automated unloading. According to Esko, it guarantees safe and simple loading of the plates sizes 50×80 inches in 0.030 to 0.255 inches thickness without operator intervention and can image on all digital photopolymer plates, ablative film or polyester-based letterpress plates.
Digiflex has also partnerered with MacDermid for plates. Shyam Sunder of Digiflex said, “The main challenge for any flexo printing applications or ink requirements is the ink transferability on the substrate. We have seen samples of labels produced using MacDermid plates and they are excellent.”
