Packed With Proficiency
PackAge Conference 2008 raised and resolved imperative issues efficiently.
With its theme ‘Improving efficiencies with technology and innovation’, the Package Conference 2008 was scheduled from August 8-9, 2008 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
Day 1
The first day of the PackAge 2008 conference witnessed more than 100 participants attending informative sessions from the eminent speakers.
The conference started with a key note address from Arunava Guva from Reliance Industries Ltd. The morning session carried presentations from Nand Lal Tiwari, Glaxo Smithkline Consumer Healthcare Ltd on the latest trends in food and pharma packaging followed by Avinash Bangale, Bosch Ltd speaking on the trends in retail packaging. Vikas Pathak, Nichrome, gave a brief on the recent advances in machines to suit new packaging requirements; Pradeep Shah, Uflex Ltd. stated about the eco friendly inks for food flexible packaging and UK Saroop, Reliance Industries Ltd. gave an insight on Polypropylene - trends and development in packaging.
The afternoon session carried practical presentations from Peter Gyger, Robatech India on the improving line efficiencies and productivities through innovation in glueing application technology. Joerg Schreiber, Schmersal India gave a presentation on safety in packaging and print machines and Krishna Prashanth, ABB Ltd. briefed on increased productivity with latest drives.
PC Jain, Great Eastern Impex Pvt. Ltd. spoke on barcode and RFID standards, Bhupinder Singh, Hewlett Packard, notified on the thermal inkjet for package coding and Harveer Sahni, Weldon Celloplast Ltd. shared his knowledge on countering pilferage with tamper evident labels.
At the end of the session, Ashish Bhutani, Barcode India talked about RFID tags and their applications and MS Bagla gave a brief on the innovation in multipacks for promotion in modern retail.
Question and answer sessions were carried throughout the session giving an opportunity to the participating delegates to raise their doubts and problems. The speakers created their sessions interactive to make the understanding easy for the participants.
Commenting on the knowledge gained from the first day of the conference, Somesh Barot, director, Web02 Solutions, said, “The conference was informative and interesting. The speakers were experienced and knowledgeable. We got a chance to interact with them and share our doubts.”
Giving a suggestion on the conference, Daliya Sudhakaran, package division officer, Hindustan Unilever Ltd said, “The session was very useful. However, if we could get a printed briefing material on all the presentations beforehand, it would have been really more helpful.”
“The content of the first day session was very useful.
Efficient speakers gave us an idea on the new technologies in scene. Management was also very satisfactory. It was an overall good experience,” concluded Gurpreet Singh, unit manager, SC Johnson.
Speakers Speak
‘True leaders leave a footprint for others to follow and reach their place’. At the PackAge Conference we found many such eminent speakers who shared their valuable knowledge and experience with the attendees to show them the path of perfection. Covering various aspects of improving efficiency with technology and innovation, the experts gave a brief on various tips and techniques of packaging.
At the end of the first day session, we gathered comments from some of the eminent Speakers to know about their experience at the conference.
Peter Gyger, Robatech India said, “As India is progressing at a high speed and the industries are going global, such sessions can really help the participants in getting an overall view of the coming up technologies.”
Adding to the same thought, Joerg Schreiber, Schmersal India piped, “It has been an interesting experience. The topics were quite remarkable and I really appreciate the participants for spending their valuable time here. I am sure they would have gained a lot from this session.”
According to Krishna Prashanth, ABB Ltd, the session carried a lot of information on new innovations, best ways of energy conserving and maintaining the efficiency of machines. Commenting on the attendees of the conference, he said, “The participants were active in raising queries and that made the session quite interactive.”
Day 2
The second and the conclusive day of PackAge conference started with a fresh registration from more than 100 participants. The first session of the day focusing on ‘Recent Advances in Converting Technologies’ initiated with the key note address by Gaurav Swarup, Pahapur 3P. Suhas Kulkarni, Kodak Graphic Communications came up with the first presentation of the day on digit flexo and Amit Ray, Uflex Ltd gave his view on the recent advances in converting technologies.
Commenting on the morning session, Mrs. Kirti, marketing executive, Shreyas Packmech said, “It has been a very informative experience for me. I got to know about the future market of flexible packaging material and their various functions.”
The second part of the session carried an extensive detailing on latest global trends in conversion of folding cartons by Venugopal Menon, Bobst Group and availability, cost movements and new developments in polymeric films by Samir Banerjee, Jindal Polyfilms Ltd. Shilip kumar, Rohm & Haas gave an insight on new generation, fast curing, high performance, environment friendly adhesive systems and Milind Gandhi, M-Tech Marketing spoke about the latest development in rotogravure printing extrusion lamination technologies.
Giving a suggestion on the topics initiated at the conference, N S Shah, deputy manager (R&D), Haldiram Snacks said, “The session is good and I look forward to more interesting things in the coming hours. However, if some topics from the quality control and end user aspect could be incorporated, it would have been more relative.”
Following the lunch, the second session of the day took over with a key note address from P Dasgupta, Hindustan Unilever Ltd. Kirti Modi gave an extensive presentation on reducing costs and improving quality using automatic plants – myths and reality.
Subsequently, the first panel discussion took over the platform giving an opportunity to the panel as well as the participants to take part in the discussion on ‘Should the buyer pay more for better quality?’ The guests at the panel discussion included leading end users like Olivier Wuthrich from Nestle India, P Dasgupta from Hindustan Unilever, S Ainain from Moser Baer, Sunil Oberoi from Radico Khaitan and Mahesh Madan from LG Electronics on one side. The other side included guests from leading corrugated box manufacturers like Ashish Khemka from Khemka Containers, Nitin Wadhwa from Securipax, Sanjay Rajgarhia from Perfectpac, Anil Gulati from Empire Packages and Kirit Modi from Horizon Pack. The discussion revolved around the quality of paper provided by the paper mills and the problems faced by both the paper and the corrugated industry.
Sharing her thoughts on the discussion, Parul Saxena, senior executive, ITW Signode said, “The session was very interactive and well organized. Everyone got a fair chance to raise doubts. The speakers and panelists are experienced and we are benefiting from their knowledge. I hope to see more of such future outlooks in the following part of session.”
Ram Kumar Sunkara, Brown Kraft Industries, implanted the seed of the second panel discussion with a remarkable presentation on the changing requirement of raw materials for automatic plants. He started with an out of the ordinary formula of PAM and MAP (where P = paper, A= adhesive and M = machine). In PAM, the paper is of high quality, followed by a medium quality of adhesive and a low quality of machine and in MAP it is vice-versa. Making an interesting comparison he said, “PAM is like Pamela Anderson, attractive but unaffordable, while MAP is a direction towards destination.” Focusing on two most important raw materials – Paper and adhesives, he gave way to the discussion on ‘Are the Indian raw material suppliers geared up for automatic plants?”
The second panel discussion included leading raw material suppliers like R C Rastogi from Khatema Fibres, Neeraj Goel from Tehri Pulp & Paper, Kailash Agarwal from Genus Paper, Manish Patel from South India Paper Mills and Umesh Garg from Ruchira Papers. The other side of the panel included leading corrugated box manufacturers like Harish Madan from SNS Containers, Pankaj Wadhwa from Wadco Group, Vikas Goyal from TGI Packaging, Ram Kumar Sunkara and Rajesh Bhugra from Supra Craft.
The discussion initiated with the claim by raw material providers that they carry the capability of meeting all sort of demands from the corrugated industry and ended with the box manufacturers requesting the paper mills to provide the best of the quality.
The interactive session summed up with the decision of having a regular get together of raw material providers and users. As Rastogi concluded, “The conference has shown us the importance of such discussions. We will arrange for regular meetings now to improve our efficiencies. This is just a beginning.”
Panel Discussion Pick-ups
PackAge Conference witnessed two daring debates at its second-day panel discussions. The first discussion was based on the topic ‘Should the buyer pay more for better quality?’ The guests on panel included leading end users like Olivier Wuthrich from Nestle India, P Dasgupta from Hindustan Unilever, S Ainain from Moser Baer, Sunil Oberoi from Radico Khaitan and Mahesh Madan from LG Electronics on one side. The other side included guests from leading corrugated box manufacturers like Ashish Khemka from Khemka Containers, Nitin Wadhwa from Securipax, Sanjay Rajgarhia from Perfectpac, Anil Gulati from Empire Packages and Kirit Modi from Horizon Pack.
‘Cost’ being the main concern for both the paper mills and the corrugated industry, the discussion revolved around the pricing problems. Getting the right quality paper was a major issue with most of the panelists as well as the companies participating in the session. Trying to figure out a solution, S Ainain said, ”It is very important for the paper mills to be consistent in their product quality. The convertor suffers a lot due to the defects in raw material. We need transparency and assurance.”
Adding value to this thought, Ashish Khemka said, “Actually the transparency is required in the total supply chain. It is not fair and fruitful to concentrate just on one aspect of the problem.”
Giving a different perspective to the discussion, Sunil Oberoi said, “It takes just 6-7 seconds for a customer to decide on a product. We need to show our effectiveness in that minimum time. We need to move with the changing world and adopt measures which add to our efficiency.”
Raising an important issue, one of the participants said, “Even when I have an experience of a decade in the paper industry, fresh graduates from college joining the industries come with suggestions for us. They tell us which paper to use and which not, ignoring our knowledge of the quality. This affects our work and we fail to give them what we feel would best meet their requirement.” The panelists accepted such matters of concern.
Sharing his thoughts with us on his experience at the panel discussion, Ainain said, “First of all I congratulate the organizers for organizing such a huge exhibition. And this conference has really been a value addition. Interacting with the participants as well as the other delegates I got to know of several issues that need to be resolved.”
The second panel discussion raised the question, ‘Are the Indian raw material suppliers geared up for automatic plants?’ The guests included leading raw material suppliers like R C Rastogi from Khatema Fibres, Neeraj Goel from Tehri Pulp & Paper, Kailash Agarwal from Genus Paper, Manish Patel from South India Paper Mills and Umesh Garg from Ruchira Papers. The other side of the panel included leading corrugated box manufacturers like Harish Madan from SNS Containers, Pankaj Wadhwa from Wadco Group, Vikas Goyal from TGI Packaging, Ram Kumar Sunkara and Rajesh Bhugra from Supra Craft.
The discussion started with a keynote from R C Rastogi who appreciated the organizers of the exhibition for arranging the PackAge conference and giving him an opportunity to participate.
Neeraj Goel, who spoke about his company’s capabilities and problems he faces as the raw material provider, initiated the discussion. Driving the attention of panelists towards the specifications of his products, he also accepted that there is a lack of co-ordination between the suppliers and the users.
Manish Patel directed the panelists and participants towards the lack of agro-based raw material in the Southern region of the country. Adding to this Umesh Garg said, “The Sugar mills are asked by the Government to use ‘bagasse’ for generating electricity. This bagasse, thus, is not available for our industries.” He anticipated that this would bring a scarcity in the amount of agro-based material available in the country.
However, the session again took over the topic of cost. Rastogi commented that one needed to pay high for better efficiency and that justified the rise in cost.
Rastogi concluded the discussion saying that the paper mills should give the best quality they could and the users should help them in their initiative.
The session ended with two promises - one by the paper mill owners to try and provide up- to- the- mark raw materials and other by the panelists to try and hold such discussions at regular and short intervals.
