Jasmine Art Printers (JAP) has installed a four colour Lithrone Komori LS429 at its unit in Wadala. The new press sits alongside a Heidelberg Komori Lithrone at Jasmine Art Printers
Jasmine Art Printers (JAP) has installed a four colour Lithrone Komori LS429 at its unit in Wadala. The new press sits alongside a Heidelberg 72V 4-colour and a 2-colour Heidelberg SORDZ. Jasmine Art is equipped with folding, section sewing, perfect binding, stitching and other binding equipment. Founded by S G Parulkar, in 1971, Jasmine is a commercial printer with good recognition among print buyers for quality and service.

Pramod Parulkar, who manages JAP opted for the press because, “we wanted immediate delivery of the press and Komori could offer the same. In terms of performance parameters, the new machine is equipped with all auto features that help fast turn-around time and printing quality is excellent.”

Parulkar feels that the new Komori will be instrumental in producing more work faster and of quality. Magazines, posters, brochures, annual reports, booklets, and calendars are produced with CtP plates that are currently out-sourced from a service bureau. Jasmine has plans to soon buy its own CtP. With a good track record the current growth targets are even higher, “The print market is growing in India and print houses are gearing up with the latest equipment and advanced technology. Competition is at peak and customers are becoming more knowledgeable and more demanding. To serve the requirement, modernisation is inevitable. In the past 5-6 years, a lot of new machines have been installed and many more are expected. . . the industry is growing in the right direction and employers are ready for technological change and bigger investments in sophisticated equipments.”

Ryobi at Dhote Offset
A simple function marked the installation of the Ryobi 684 AJ. A plant visit followed by a gathering for clients, fellow printers and friends addressed by Surendra Bhandari of Indo European Machinery and Shinichi Sasaki, Manager, Ryobi Limited.

The Ryobi 684 AJ's entire operation flow from make-ready through printing is centrally controlled using the touch panel. This enables in shortening make-ready time for changing the paper, cleaning, registration adjustment, colour tone adjustment, water volume adjustment, and other tasks when switching jobs.

Plates are changed quickly and accurately with the operator merely putting the plate on the positioning pins and pressing a button. Plate-bending device is not required. Tushar Dhote gave his reasons for buying a Ryobi, “Its compactness, since it had to replace our Dominant 745 working space. It is fully automated, with double diameter cylinders in a seven o' clock configuration it allows better performance in speed, register and quality. After considering all the machines in this range there was no better choice in terms of “Price to Performance”.

Dhote is happy with the Ryobi. He says, “It is very well suited for Mumbai for small shopfloor spaces. The Ryobi is equipped with CIP4 and with all presets such as paper sizing, pressure setting, gripper setting and including auto plate, auto blanket wash etc. Thus we are sure of productivity of the highest levels.”

The company is looking at 12-15 print jobs in an 8-hour shift for the Ryobi. Dhote explains, “Having our own CtP is allowing us to use the CIP 4 interface for ink volume setting. Short run jobs are done in a jiffy. The make ready and printing for a short run publication job with a run length of 3000 sheets is complete in flat 20 to 25 minutes, thus we can easily complete around 12 to 14 changes in an 8-hour shift. We mostly cater to short runs, as we find it more profitable and allows the maximum use of CtP. We can thus deliver print on demand with the finest offset quality at the most affordable price.”