The PRINTECH 2007, held from 15th to 19th December 2007 was an expo on printing and packaging equipment & technology industries. Mumbai being a main hub for print houses, broadsheet print lines, binders, print and pack setups and other printing, packaging and plastics related industries, there was large crowd mostly from offset segment. There were visitors from all over Maharashtra from places such as Nashik, Latur, Pune and also from Goa and north Karnataka. However it included mostly print buyers, printers staff and students and not much of printers. Interestingly the appreciative fact was that the organizers had deployed students from GIPT, Mumbai in each stalls and these students could gain some knowledge in the printing industry.

As for Grafica, it was an outstanding opportunity to demonstrate its cylinder press and accu speed screen printing machines live along with table top UV system. Hundreds of visitors thronged the stall and they were given on spot printed samples. Grafica too had two GIPT students who were active in attending the visitors along with Grafica team.

Grafica  came across a dilemma that the offset printers from Mumbai though have money to invest in advanced screen printing technology could not go ahead for want of space as otherwise they will be forced to shift their operations to a bigger place. On the other hand, printers from interior places of Maharashtra have enough space but lack sufficient fund to go ahead with the plan (buy advanced screen printing machines). However, thanks to Grafica’s wide range of screen printing machines, such printers could go back with some solutions of  low cost small machines which they could think of going for it in the near future.

Most of the offset printers were looking for print finish solutions that the Grafica cylinder press demonstrated at the expo.

Like Fespa New Delhi, at Printech too the visitors got attracted to DMI’s training activities as there were displays on DMI.

In fact, live demonstration of Grafica screen printing technology at  Printech 2007 was an eye opener for most of the Mumbai offset printers since they could see the kind of performance of these machines which can produce wonders and give added value to their customers.  Some of them however expressed their willingness to incorporate screen printing technology in the offset operations.

Grafica feels that participating at  technology driven expos like printing brings lot of learning experience which when incorporated/corrected in future participation brings immense response. Participating in such expos brings impact only if the exhibitor shows everything live and real in terms of technology, engineering, quality, of course supported by exhibitor’s past performance, history (track record) above all brand image.

As the year ends (2007), Grafica looks forward to participate in many such expos in 2008 as well with renewed ideas and technology for the  benefit of end users, the printers.