Business is bustling in India. Its economy grew by 5.3% in the July to September period from a year earlier, and by 5.7% in the previous quarter.
"Growth in India is expected to rise to 5.6 per cent in 2014 and pick up further to 6.4 per cent in 2015 as both exports and investment increase," the International Monetary Fund said in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) report released in October 2014.
So Parkar Communications Private Limited (PCPL), a one-stop shop for on-the-ground marketing communication in Mumbai, has been busy creating work for brands such as P&G, Gillette, Cadbury, Onida and Mahanagar Gas.
Six months ago, the company installed an Esko Kongsberg XN cutting and creasing table with Esko’s ArtiosCAD 3D and i-cut Suite software at its Andheri East plant.
Until the company installed the Kongsberg XN, PCPL was totally dependent on manual labor for executing its signage and POP projects, engaging almost a dozen persons in that department. That count is now down to just one. “It was all manual cutting and involved quite a bit of labor management. Also, the cost of blades and cutters were a big expense. And we could not get the desired quality. That led us to Esko,” Mahesh Parkar, managing director of PCPL, stated.
Manually cutting an 8 foot by 4 foot sheet took close to 45 minutes. With the Esko Kongsberg XN, that time is down to only 6 to 8 minutes. “The Kongsberg XN cutting table not only helps us save on labor, but it also allows us to reduce the material costs; which is in fact a huge saving,” Parker noted.
PCPL has also expanded its scope of work. “We are now cutting materials which we were outsourcing to a third party. Earlier we were not sure if we could do justice to clients where certain materials were involved. We would either not take that work, or we were compelled to outsource it. After installing the Kongsberg XN our reliance on third parties is over and our commitment levels have increased.”
Esko’s ArtiosCAD allows PCPL to create its POP designs from scratch in 3D and send them directly to the cutting table, while i-cut’s preflight checks the PDF files coming in and makes sure the files will RIP and print and cut correctly. The i-cut Suite also saves material and optimises production by determining the most accurate and efficient cutting path.
“We had an impression that extensive training would be needed to operate the Esko software. On the contrary, it turned out to be very easy software to handle. Yes, it would take some time to become an expert but one can be trained for basic operations in a very short time. The proof is that one of our staff, who was part of our labor department, is currently operating the system.”
Shrihari Rao, who leads Esko’s sales team in India, added, “The Kongsberg tables offer quick throughput because they require very little setup time. There are equipment manufacturers who claim they can produce hundreds of pieces an hour, but take hours to set up and that is inefficient.”
Siginifant savings across the board and a rise in productivity and improved consistency in quality - PCPL's business has had a major boost. “In the last six months our business in POP and signage segment has seen a growth of close to 50%. This is because of the rise in our capacity and our confidence in taking on a variety of work. However, this is just a start and we still have sufficient capacity in the signage segment to see a further growth of another 50%,” Parkar concluded.
