Acme Rolltech | 127Acme Rolltech doubles productionAhmedabad, India-based Acme Rolltech has added a second ALE engraving machine to double its production capacity for anilox rolls and sleeves. Akanksha Meena reports tarted in 2019 by three childhood friends, Acme Rolltech claims to be the frst Indian company to manufacture ceramic Sanilox rolls and sleeves in India. The company provides its products to narrow web fexo, offset, corrugated, stack fexo, CI fexo and flm coating line segments. Sandeep Sharma, director of Acme Rolltech, says: ‘Our USP is quality and service lead time. Previously, anilox rolls in India were imported from Europe, the US and China, so the lead time was 45-60 days or more. We provide our products within 15-20 days.’ The new engraving machine was supplied by UK-based Applied Laser Engineering. The order was placed in 2021 and the machine is now at the company’s plant in Ahmedabad. Acme will also add new equipment for pre- and post-processing.The new investment will allow Acme Rolltech to double production from 200 to 400 anilox rolls a month. Half of that L-R: Parag Patel, Parag Koradia and Sandeep Sharma, directors of Acme Rolltechtotal goes to narrow web labels and the rest is split between the other segments.‘We ensure that customers get a similar quality to what they “Expansion is the need of the hour get from European and US suppliers. We provide better lead time and pricing in India. We have created market for ourselves and and with the new capacity we are are seeing a lot of growth opportunities. We have identifed new covered for the next two years”segments and look to target them for future growth,’ Sharma says.Acme has introduced two new products – anilox rolls for high opacity white ink to replace screen printing and a raised embossing why we help our customers and guide them to achieve the results effect. Additionally, Acme plans for the new machine are to they want with fewer aniloxes. We have done it for many clients. introduce next generation heavy deposition coating rolls for flms They are happy with the results achieved.’and paper fexo and offset coating applications. There is also a spike in unsupported substrate jobs such as shrink Sharma believes that the pandemic was a blessing in disguise sleeves, pouches and ice cream cones. for the company. Before Covid, anilox rolls were imported ‘In the past, out of 100 printers, only 20-30 did unsupported into India from China and Europe, which was disrupted by the jobs along with labelstock such as shrink sleeves and pouches pandemic-related logistics challenges. This allowed Acme to and the rest did purely labelstock products. In the last 3-5 years, acquire new customers who could no longer import the aniloxes. this has switched. Seventy percent of converters are now printing Acme now plans to add further products that are not currently unsupported labels along with regular labelstock and now only 30 manufactured in India, parallel to its product line in the print percent are using purely labelstock. Most of them are now providing and packaging industry. The company might announce another shrink sleeves or pouches. I know a few printers who have added expansion plan by the year end. dedicated fexo machines to print unsupported labels,’ Sharma says. ‘Expansion is the need of the hour and with the new capacity The reason behind this, he explains, is a growing demand we are covered for the next two years,’ he says. post-pandemic for short runs of unsupported flm products. Conventional print businesses are unable to proftably service this Indian market trends market, opening up opportunities for fexo label printers to offer According to Sharma, the trend of decorative products and added short runs with a faster turnaround.value is on the rise in India. ‘This is a reason why label printers are now doing unsupported ‘Value added products cost more with screen units. But what if jobs. Going forward I see most label printers housing fexo presses you could do it with an anilox? Both of our new products are selling only for unsupported jobs.’ like hotcakes. Customers who have screen units and those who In three years, the company has established its customer base don’t are both buying from us.’ across India and exports to more than 15 countries including As raw material costs increase, end users are pushing converters Mexico, Germany, Indonesia, Poland, Turkey, South Africa, Kenya, to maintain the same price but requiring the same special effects. Dubai and France. The manufacturer supplies its products directly in Sharma says Acme’s new anilox can provide close to screen-like India and has distributors for exports. It is actively looking to recruit results (85 percent of the opacity) at a lower cost. partners in Thailand, Bangladesh and China. The increase in shorter runs, driven by a surge of e-commerce companies and increasing numbers of SKUs, is a concern for fexo printers because they need to generate more fexo plates.For more from Akanksha Meena on the Indian label ‘Generally, converters are not able to recover costs of new plates market, go to www.labelsandlabeling.com/contributors/from the end user. Anilox as a consumable is more expensive. That’s akanksha-meenaApr - Jun 2022