Packaging Pioneers
Face to face with Rajesh Khosla, MD, Khosla Group
Khosla Group has focused all its attention on the packaging industry since its inception in 1982. Rajesh Khosla, Managing Director, Khosla Group speaks to us about Khosla Machines and Khosla Precisions, which are the two group companies.
Kindly brief us on Khosla Machines.
Khosla Machines is the flagship company which is a pioneer in manufacturing indigenous soap packaging machines for toilet soaps, guest bar soaps, detergent bar, laundry bars and hotel soap. The various packaging formats we cater to are overwrap, pouch pack as well as banding.
How have you managed the shift from glue flap to hot melt technology in soap packaging?
Glue flap technology started fading out around eight years back as it faced challenges on wastage, efficiency and speed. We therefore adopted the new hot melt technology, which provides better speeds (as we are able to run machines faster), much cleaner processes and there is no splashing of liquid glue. The seal integrity is far better than cold glue application.
How do you ensure perfect sealing of the products? What is the percentage of wastage in soap packaging?
The soaps today are bandless (without straight edges) in shape as compared to brick / cuboid shaped soaps wherein there are large flat areas making seal application easy. We advise customer keeping in view the soap shapes on the wrapper layout for optimal wrapper dimensions. Khosla Machines are 'Wastage Killers'. Be it any category of Khosla product that one goes for – we ensure that the wastage is within 1 percent.
Do you use the 'no product – no pack' technology?
All Khosla soap wrapping machines are with no-soap-no wrap feature and this ensures no wastages on the machine.
Specify the speed range of Khosla soap packaging machines.
In the wrapping format, we have three series of machines - Wrapper 3000 with around 160 tablets per minute, Wrapper 4000 can comfortably do 180 tablets per minute and Wrapper 6000 is at 230 tablets per minute.
Brief us on the companies using Khosla soap packaging machines.
In the big names, our customers include Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Henkel, VVF, Wipro, Karnataka Soaps, Nirma and Ghari Group. In South India, Power Soaps, is one of our oldest customers. Many of the companies like Nirma, Fena, 555, Ghari and Power started their automatic packaging with Khosla Machines.
What are the key benefits of Wrapper 6000T you are showcasing at PackPlus 2009?
Wrapper 6000 series is the premium series offered by Khosla and at PackPlus we would present this machine for the first time in the Indian market. This machine caters to high-speed production lines and handling of soap is through suction pick and place mechanism. It's a servo based machine with servo controls. Settings can be saved on HMI panel and recalled to get the machine going in the shortest possible time. 6000 T uses the latest Allen Bradley platform of servo drives and PLC system.
We see soaps in super markets in a banded format. Does Khosla offer an automated solution?
Khosla Machines will showcase another marvel at PackPlus 2009 - ABM 1100- an excellent option for making collated packs. It can be used in online as well as off line format. Promotional packs are here to stay and the idea is to be able to clearly show the message to the end user, with minimum cost of packaging. ABM 1100 gets linked to the discharge of any wrapping machine. It makes collated packs from 2-5 soaps per pack and other sizes are considered on request. The speed of the machine is 220 tablets per minute, and it is easy to set size from one variety to the other.
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On Khosla Precisions:
Tell us about Khosla Precisions.
Khosla Precisions has built its reputation as a leading supplier of quality biscuit packaging solutions by providing customized machinery designs to address customer's specific requirements. The domains include on-edge, canteen pack and family pack.
What segments and form of biscuit packaging do you cater to?
Our machines are adaptable to biscuits of all varieties and shapes.
How do you manage packaging fragile varieties of biscuit?
To take the challenge of packaging fragile biscuits, we had designed autofeeder which is far gentler on the biscuit. In all our latest series' machines, we offer both belts as well as chain discharge which again have a unique design. The beauty of the belt discharge system is that it brings down the change over time from one variety to the other dramatically and for fragile biscuits is a boon because there is no hard contact to the biscuit coming to the belt. This technology will be showcased at Pack Plus 2009.
What are the latest products at Khosla Precisions?
Logipac 21E machine would be the first of its kind worldwide. This machine can be used for cream biscuit packaging as well as regular biscuit packaging with magazine feeding. Our customers will get high speed cream packing operations and can feed the biscuit, just as they do for the regular biscuits. This is without additional manpower and extra space that conventional cream packing lines require today. Logipac 21E is a servo based machine, so the size change- over is convenient and fast. We would be showcasing this machine at PackPlus 2009.
