Janus Packaging continues creating value with Heidelberg

-with increased capabilities, by installing another six-colour UV press – Speedmaster CD 102 from Heidelberg, enabling to deliver high quality offerings to its customers, after making the leap from single-colour to six-colour in the year 2008 Considering the success of Janus Packaging in the packaging segment, especially in recent years, it comes as a surprise that its founder, Munish Aggarwal, is not from a printing background. In the packaging segment, Janus primarily caters to pharmaceutical, perfume and FMCG industries in India, apart from offering commercial printing services to its customers, covering magazines, catalogues, brochures, greeting cards, posters, paper bags and so on.

“We started this business almost accidentally,” says Aggarwal, executive director at Janus, who completed his Bachelor of Arts from Chandigarh, and after two years at a job, he began working as a freelancer outsourcing print jobs. Often, these jobs were urgent and critical for customers. To be better placed to meet the needs of his customers, Aggarwal procured a single-colour press and bought a small industrial plot in 1999 in Baddi, which is a large industrial area in the state of Himachal Pradesh. The company was then known as Janus Communications and supplied to small pharmaceutical companies. With time, the management of Janus began to realize that it was not possible to supply high quality cartons to customers without having good printing presses. “We started working out how we could afford the more expensive presses, buy more land, and construct a factory,” says Aggarwal.

Janus Communications became Janus Packaging in 2005 and also purchased the land where its factory is presently located. Janus came in touch with Heidelberg India at an exhibition where the latter was showcasing the Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 74 press. And finally, the company settled on the Heidelberg Speemaster CD 74 six-colour UV press in 2008. After the Speemaster CD 74, it was a natural progression for Janus to buy the Speedmaster CD 102 and so did they in 2012 by installing a Speedmaster CD 102 six-colour UV press. According to Aggarwal, Janus has been supported very ably by Heidelberg. “We have seen Heidelberg press working for the last four years. Heidelberg machines are very stable and reliable. All machines have breakdowns, but the difference lies in how quickly such issues are addressed. Heidelbergs’ after sales service is very strong, well planned and well placed.

This fact facilitated our decision to go for Speedmaster CD 102,” he says.

The highly automated Speedmaster CD 102 comes equipped with the Preset Plus Feeder, which helps Janus achieve uninterrupted production even across a wide variety of substrates. The Alcolor inking and dampening system with Vario function ensures excellent colour quality, time and again. Prinect Press Center Compact, with the Intellistart process-oriented operator guidance system, allows extremely easy and user-friendly operation. The press can print up to 15,000 sheets per hour, and handles sheet thickness between 0.03 mm and 1.00 mm. Besides the two Heidelberg presses, Janus also has a POLAR cutting machine, which was bought in 2009. “It’s a very efficient and reliable cutting machine and Heidelberg provides excellent service for it as well,” says Aggarwal.

Making the leap from single-colour to six-colour in 2008 was an especially difficult transition, because it required a rethink of the entire business. Recalling that period, Aggarwal says, “For the first couple of years, our entire system took a hit. Our whole business was based on single-colour, and all our customers were from that segment.” So in some sense, the company was starting afresh, realigning its marketing activities with its new set of offerings, and acquiring new customers. “The first 2-3 years were very tough for us. Unlike a shift from, say, four-colour to six-colour, where some things would remain predictable, we had no way to plan for or foresee some of the changes that happened,” adds Aggarwal. But with the dedication and effort of the entire team, Janus pulled through the rough patch, and went on to become India’s first Ugra certified company, and today, is capable of printing according to ISO 12647-2 standards. This gives its customers the assurance that the company can produce consistent quality jobs.