Artize Die Makers: offering timely supply of quality dies for packaging

Established in 2011 by Mukul Luthra, Artize Die Makers are manufacturers & suppliers of tools used for the paper and packaging industry including cutting, stripping and embossing and foil stamping tools used in various presses. Mukul has a Masters in Economics from University of Glasgow, United Kingdom and has also worked with a government organization, which was into economic research.

The journey…

“The idea of this business was given by one of my friends, who was into printing and packaging industry. I researched about the industry, machines and technology, and later started this business in 2011,” recalls Mukul. “We started from Naraina Industrial Area in Delhi and later in 2015, we bought our own land and building in Kundli Industrial Area, Sonipat, where we shifted in 2016. More recently, we started a new plant in Vapi, Gujarat in 2022.”

On asking about the reason for the second plant, Mukul replies, “In long term, this business is going to be restricted within 300 kilometers of radius, because lead times which we receive from our customers is very less and secondly, the cost of transportation has to be kept as low as possible, which still comes out to be 15-20% cost of the product, which is a high value. Thirdly, we need to give good after sales support as well. Sometimes the customer wants to get the dies repaired and they like to have a solution which is around them. That’s why we were about to expand in our northern plant, but we decided not to do that and rather have another stand-alone location.”

On production capacity…

“We can produce about 150-160 dies per day now with our second plant. Currently, we are utilizing around 70 percent of our capacity,“ shares Mukul.

On lead times…

“Customers have very short lead times for these products. We make sure that we produce and dispatch the order within 24 hours so that they are able to at least receive it within 36 hours. But, in super urgent cases, we even deliver a die in four hours as well,” he shares.

On quality…

“We as a company do not believe in quality control measures but ensure quality assurance at all stages. Since our product is interlinked and one department becomes the supplier to the next department,so we make sure that the supplier of one department is supplying the correct goods to the next department. That way, we believe in quality assurance and make sure that each department does their own job with the correct parameters and they supply the correct product to the next department,” shares Mukul.

On future plans…

“The industry is being driven by the volume and India is a high consumption, high volume industry, even though it is very price sensitive market. The brand owners and the packaging plants are moving towards automation where they are packaging their products automatically and that vertical is growing very high. This means that brand owners need the packaging which has to be precise and which has to have right creasing values and is efficient and accurate so that the machine picks up the box and packages it at the optimum speeds for which they are designed for. And that is what our target is to provide quality dies which can produce high quality and high precise packaging products.”

On a concluding note…

“Our long-term vision is to reduce the makeready times of the die cutting machines and bring it down to 10 to 15 minutes for a new job or repeat job,” concludes Mukul.