Rave India: : towards excellent print production

From pre-press to a full-fledged printing house…with everything from pre-press to post press under one roof, Rave Scan has come a long way. Stringent quality measures, top-of-the-line machinery and the desire to excel in the print production – has given Rave Scan a name to reckon with. Printing presses today are not just techno-savvy but are also trying to be environment-friendly. Well known Rave India has recently installed a powder extractor system from Rado Packaging Machines Pvt Ltd, which may seem to be just an additional machine with the press to few, but which is a very effective and environment-friendly option. “There is a lot of powder dust that is generated while printing, which is harmful to the people working in the press. Sometimes, it even disseminates through the air-conditioning in other parts of the facility. The powder extractor system extracts all the dust, which can even be re-used for printing. Besides, it also ensures less spray powder dropping and less damage to gear chain and electronic circuit of the offset printing press; thus improving the printing quality and extending the operation life of the printing press,” told Bhavnesh Kumar, director, Rave India.

For Rave India, book printing is their main strength – short-run commercial jobs come and go but book printing is something which is a 24×7 job, which they are accomplishing with elan and ease. “The demand for coffee table books is rising as the awareness is more and self-publishing has given wings to the creativity of many first-time authors,” told Charu of Rave India. “Earlier, coffee table books were a luxury which not everybody would keep at their homes but now the scenario has changed, even ordinary households love to flaunt them.”

Bhavnesh Kumar and Rakesh Bhatnagar“The print run for such coffee table books varies anything between 1,000-2,000 copies. These are high-end jobs and we provide the complete solution for these books. Infact, few of our customers just provide us the pictures and we develop the content and design it accordingly,” told Bhavnesh.

Rave Scan also specializes in producing annual school magazines for which they provide a complete solution, right from designing to post press. “We have a tie-up with a host of schools and we provide a complete solution to them,” he added.

“Almost 60 percent of our turnover comes from books, it is an year round job for us. Balance 40 percent of our turnover comes from other print jobs,” told Rakesh Bhatnagar, managing director, Rave India. “Our customers are mostly Indian publishers and we feel happy servicing the local clients, though we would definitely like to go for exports as well.”

Talking about the book printing market in India, Rakesh added, “It is still less as compared to foreign market, where we find people reading books everywhere – in buses, trains, beachside – in fact everywhere. That culture is still not there in India and hence there’s still a lot of scope to grow.”

The journey of Rave India has been interesting. Starting as a pre-press house in 1993, they ventured into printing in 2005. “In 2002-2003, we visited the top industry fairs like IPEX, drupa and Frankfurt Book Fair, we realized that pre-press houses have become passé abroad. And if we have to grow, we need to diversify into printing as most of the pre-press houses had by then become a part of the printing area – they were just an ancillary structure ,” reminisced Rakesh.

With a workforce of over 400 people, Rave India is busy servicing a number of publishers, schools and corporate. “We have all facilities under one roof – pre-press, press and post press. Though we are proud to say that we have an impressive line of machines for our pre-press and press units, we still need to strengthen our post press section,” he added.

Combined together in their two units in Naraina, their press units house Heidelberg XL 105 4 colour machine, two Heidelberg SM 74 5-colour machine, one Heidelberg SM 102 4-colour machine and one Heidelberg single colour machine, besides KBA Planeta VCVD 5-colour CPC with coater, KBA Planeta P-44 with alcohol dampener and KBA Planeta P-24 2-colur machine.

While, their post press segments house one Perfecta program cutting machine, four Heidelberg Polar program cutting machine, five Shahl folding machines, one Muller Martini flowline saddle stitcher, two 6 clamp perfect binder, three saddle stitchers, two thermal and two wet lamination machines, two nipping machines, two shrink wrapping machines, one creasing and perforation machines, two bundling machines, one die-cutting machine, one Sakurai Maestro online coater with UV conveyer and three Muller Martini section sewing machines, etc.

Talking about their new unit in Gurgaon, Rakesh informed, ‘Right now, we have two printing machines in our Gurgaon office – Heidelberg CD 102 4-colour and Heidelberg CD 102 4+L and most probably, we might go for a complete packaging unit there.”

“We have been expanding for the last five years and so are not eyeing any major expansion this year. Last year, we experienced a growth of 35 percent than previous year and the first four months of the new financial year has given us a growth of

40 percent over the same period last year. We are targeting a growth of 50 percent this financial year,” echoed Rakesh and Bhavnesh. “Also, we might go for IPO after sometime and then plan for major expansion,” concluded Rakesh.