India's First Film on advanced Screen Printing Process

GRAFICA Flextronica, is a pioneer in many fields as far as screen printing industry is concerned. The company is the first one to set up a state of the art screen printing training institute at its manufacturing plant at Vasai near Mumbai. After a series of year long training programmes, now Grafica ventured into set another landmark of 'first time in India' SCREEN ON SCREEN, a video film on screen printing right from in ( prepress ) to out ( post press ). It is India's first video film which came out of Grafica's think tank with a big bang.

Its Grafica's tradition to give its customer full fledged training and educating in screen printing. Grafica has taken up the task of reaching out to the doorsteps of Indian screen printers, even to remote places, in a big way. It has launched its result oriented and practical advanced screen printing technology - a video film in advanced screen printing. It was recently produced by DMI and directed by Bhargav Mistry, MD of Grafica. It is of 2-3 hours duration

The first show was presented by Grafica, at Nasik on 30th July 2007. Grafica the moved on to Nagpur on 31st July, at Pune on 1st August at Goa on 3rd August 2007 and at Belgaum on 29th September 2007. Besides these programmes, Grafica also screened this film at Tiruppur during the Knit Show expo on 10th August 2007.

Bhargav presented the film at all the events who was assisted by a team from Grafica including Srinivas Karnati, Keyur Vashi, Hanish Mehta, Ashish Chavan, Surender, and students of DMI.

As part of the film presentation a live demo of UV various applications such as varnishing etc using UV curing machine was also performed at all the events. For this purpose, Grafica had carried a vehicle fitted with UV curing machine, vacuum table, four color job samples of varnishing on offset jobs. The samples were distributed to the participants. " We had shown them samples of gloss, sand, matt, varnishing jobs. The participants especially the offset printers were amazed to see the results" says Bhargav.

Commenting on the success of the release of SCREEN ON SCREEN, Bhargav, Grafica MD told that participants everywhere were amazed to see the results of "UV in action" on offset jobs which demonstrated the fusion of offset and screen process. "Printers were very keen to know more about advanced screen printing. They were also happy to know about DMI and its activities. After the program they were interacting with Grafica team with great interest," says Bhargav.

At Nagpur show there was a participant from Jalgaon who expressed his desire to conduct such program in that town. "We also conducted one program at Belgaum . The programme was held at Sankamthai Hotel and 29th September 2007. There were over 85 participants. President of Belgaum Press Association, Ajit Patil was instrumental in helping Grafica for the success of the programme” says Bhargav.

Bhargav in his presentation also spoke about FESPA and SPAI so that the local printers become aware of the activities these organizations working for the benefit of printers.

Fabric stretching and tension meter Screen preparation, Emulsion coating, Screen exposing, Setting correct exposing time using exposure calculator, Screen developing after exposing, Ghost and haze remover Screen printing, ICC profile chart, Marketing of ICC profile using CNC spectrophotometer system, Screen printing process (four) color printing (CMYK), squeegee sharpening, UV curing/hot air dryers and much more.

The film received houseful response at all locations Nasik (85), Nagpur (100), Pune (135), Goa (75) and most recently at Belgaum (85). The invitees were from offset, screen, sign and digital field and also dealers of inks. Some of these participants happened to be Grafica customers. In Tiruppur the participants were mostly from textile printing. Grafica was lucky to have the cooperation of Ashok Andare, a dealer- cum-printer and Sanjay Khanzode of SMS Inds, both from Nasik who spoke few words about Grafica before the start of the event. DMI students were also lucky to get a factory visit at SMS industry as a part of DMI to encourage students and organize industrial visits for them. Sandip Tattu a Grafica dealer and Madhusudan Chowbey, president of local screen printers' association was a helping hand to Grafica at Nagpur. Being happy with the way DMI contributes to screen printing and printing students in particular, director and principal of Institute of Printing Technology (IPT), Pune Prof Sanjog Patre thanked Grafica while praising DMI's activities and its support to students. Commenting on the show at Pune, Deepan Samarth of Sai Paks and Anand Awatade of Floraa said that they were happy to see the screen technology and the UV in action. "No doubt that UV is very useful in our business" said Awatade whose company is into manufacturing of aluminum alloys related products.

With successful demonstration of SCREEN ON SCREEN in Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka, Grafica is surely setting a new trend in the screen printing industry of taking the technology right to the doorsteps of screen printers many of whom are still not aware of its great potentials that can explore in the emerging economy and market opportunities.

Grafica is committed to reach out to Screen Printers with its educational Video film even to remote places.