Royal Prints, a Bhiwadi-based packaging company, recently enhanced its postpress unit by installing a Bobst 1100 Novafold folder-gluer. The company specializes in the pharmaceutical industry, manufacturing leaflets, labels, and cartons, as well as cigarette cartons.

The company began its operations in 1987 as Mukesh Printers, founded by the late MC Bhargava in Karol Bagh. In 2014, the company moved to Bhiwadi and rebranded as Royal Prints due to an existing company with a similar name in the area. Now, the business is managed by the second and third generations of the Bhargava family – Mukesh Bhargava and his sons, Gaurav and Abhishek Bhargava, both engineers who joined the family business in 2009.

When the company relocated to Bhiwadi in 2014, it had two Dominant 2-color presses. Over the years, it expanded its machinery to include a Dominant 5-color press, Polly CPC offset printing machines, Heidelberg SM 74 and Heidelberg CD 74. The company also upgraded its postpress capabilities with two automatic diecutting machines, a UV coater, and a Polar cutting machine, along with two pasting machines from a Bangalore-based company. The Bobst folder-gluer is their latest acquisition.

Gaurav Bhargava explained the move from Karol Bagh, citing that it was a non-conforming area and most of their clients were in Bhiwadi. “We had the option of shifting to Sonipat, Rai, but avoided it due to intense competition,” he said. “In Bhiwadi, competition was not as fierce. From here, we send our material to places like Lucknow, Amritsar, and more.”

“Before investing in the Bobst folder-gluer machine, we reached out to Chandrasekhar Dhote at Bobst, who arranged a visit to their Pune plant. There, they showcased the machine’s capabilities by performing 11 different changeovers within eight hours, demonstrating various carton types, including lock bottom cartons, and cartons with minimimum pasting flap of just six millimeters. We were thoroughly impressed with the machine’s performance. Although we received quotations from other manufacturers as well, we ultimately recognized that despite the initial investment in Bobst being comparatively higher, their machines are of world-class quality,” said Mukesh Bhargava.

Gaurav Bhargava added, “The other day, we set up a straight-line job for 200,000 cartons on our new Bobst folder-gluer, and within two and a half hours, it was done. If we had run this on our existing folder-gluers, its speed would have been 30,000 or 40,000 cartons per hour.” He emphasized that none of the boxes were stuck from the inside, the glue was perfect, and the pre-folding was excellent, meeting the high-speed requirements of their clients’ cartanators.

Chandrashekar Dhote, regional manager – sales (north & east), Bobst said, “We are very happy that Royal Prints took a very informed decision after taking trials on Bobst and other Far East machines that are available in the market. Royal Prints brought 11 jobs to our Competence Center in Pune for trials on the Novafold machine, and we were able to successfully run all of them in 8 hours. They were very happy with the fast changeover and the knowledge & expertise that our process engineer team shared with them.”

He further added, “Bobst is here to provide the entire value proposition. We are not just selling a machine; we are selling the entire solution to our customers, and this makes us different from the other competitors.”

Abhishek Bhargava explained their choice of the 1100 size folder gluer. “Our future perspective is to run corrugation on the Bobst folder-gluer machine, whether single ply or E-flute,” he said. “Now that we have acquired the 1100 size Bobst folder-gluer, our next addition will be a Bobst 28-40 size die-cutting machine. Currently, die-cutting is our bottleneck, so within the next eight months to a year, we’ll be getting a Bobst die-cutting machine.” The company also plans to invest in a narrow web flexo press to produce labels for its pharmaceutical clients.

Mukesh Bhargava highlighted that with the installation of the Bobst folder-gluer, the company’s turnaround time has decreased significantly, and there is no longer any need to worry about quality. The company has the capacity to convert 10,00,000 boxes per day and currently produces around 6,00,000 boxes daily in shifts of 12 to 14 hours. Royal Prints caters to more than 20 pharma clients.