Print & Publishing | A Bi Monthly Magazine on Printed and Digital Communications in India

Established in 1990 by Kalyanasundaram, Chennai-based Srikals Graphics has completed twenty million impressions within one year (a 12-hour working day) on the Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 102 five-colour press, winning confidence of customers again with peak creativity and performance. In order to strengthen their infrastructure for catering packaging jobs, the company had installed this press with coater in 2007.

“Since we were also concentrating on packaging jobs and the demands posed by clients were challenging, we opted for the Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 102 which provided us superior quality and cutting-edge technology. We are confident of handling a job of any complexity now. Many a times, jobs done by other printers which are rejected by clients come to us and we deliver the required quality,” commented Kalyanasundaram.

“Speedmaster CD 102, with the inline coater, operates with a delivery of 15,000 sheets per hour with fully automatic digital controlled system - CP 2000. The makeready times are very short and press operations are user-friendly. Also, size is an added advantage especially with the pharmaceutical jobs. We have completed 18 million impressions in less than one year on a 12-hour working day, on this new press. Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 102 proves to be an excellent value for money,” says Kalyanasundaram. Srikals now exports print jobs to the USA, European and African markets as well,” he added.

Commenting on Heidelberg, Kalyanasundaram expresses, “Heidelberg is not an equipment supplier but an advisor to us. They have guided and helped us grow like partners in business. Our operators have visited the Print Media Academy in India and have upgraded their skills which has helped us to a great extent.”

Today, Srikals operates from Ekkattuthangal in Chennai with their own building spanning 60,000 square feet and is one of the prominent names in South India whose client portfolio includes major brands like Biocon, Citibank, Henkel, etc. With an employee strength of 200 people, they have been growing at a steady rate of 15-20 percent annually. After the installation of the new Heidelberg Speedmaster CD102, their annual growth rate has touched 25 percent. A well-planned marketing department is taken care of by Srinivasan, elder son of Kalyanasundaram, who has completed his Engineering degree in Computer Sciences, holds an MBA from London. Srinivasan has also done courses from Heidelberg’s Print Media Academy in Dubai. Balaji, the younger son of Kalyanasundaram, takes care of the production department and works very closely with Srinivasan.

Established by linguist and historian, Kamal Dixit and nourished by his sons Kunda and Kanak Dixit, who are noted Nepali journalists and publishers, Jagadamba Press (P) Ltd is the Nepal’s most modern press, equipped with all state-of-the-art equipments, offering prepress and print solutions to their renowned clientele, apart from printing for their own magazines. “Be it prepress, in-press or post press, we rely on cutting-edge technologies as e can’t compromise with quality of services we provide,” stated Narayan.

Constantly operational since 1957, Jagadamba Press has been relentlessly insisting on enhancing production capacity. Initially for several years, it worked with cold movable type and a treadle machines to print books in Nepali. Later to fulfill the growing demand, it established its own type foundry in 1975. Ever since those early letterpress days, it has been known for quality production: books, magazines and jobs of major Nepali business houses. Receiving encouraging response from our customers, it embarked on a major modernisation drive in 1988 with the shift to offset and the induction of two single colour Adast Dominant presses as well as camera, plate making section and desk-top typesetting unit. Continuing further expansion plan in 1993, it again revamped the press converting into an international class printing facility.

“It was the year 2007, when we took a great technological leap forward, with the induction of a brand new Toshiba heatset web with capablity of printing 35,000 impressions an hour, which tripled our existing capacity and brought production quality to a new pinnacle. This time we equally upgraded our post-press division with an automated folding machine, state-of-the-art precision paper cutters as well as newer models of automatic perfect binding machines,” said Narayan, presenting the chronology of expansion plans of the company.

To produce high quality imaging inputs, Jagadamba Press has established a dedicated pre-press division under the banner of ScanPro, which is headed by Om Pradhan.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2008, Jagadmaba Press placed an order for a state-of-the-art Mitsubishi 3000LS Diamond printing press that was the most modern printing press in Nepal when it came into operation in early last year. This machine is capable of printing five-colours and has a coating unit. It can print paper sizes up to 1,020mm x 720mm at speeds of up to 16,000 sheets per hour.

Today the company’s new facility at Hatiban in Lalitpur, having ample space, a relaxed environment with garden and football playground and obviously a friendly working atmosphere and with 10,000 sq ft storage space, witnesses their growth over the years. Apart from Mitsubishi 3000LS Diamond, some of the other equipments installed in their facility include: TOSHIBA heat set four colour web offset 32”x22”; Adast Dominant 745 CP four colour Offset 19”x 25”; Stitch Star Wire sticher (with speed up to 7000 books per hour); Stitch Star machine (stitch, 3 knife trimming), which can stitch and trim 5000 magazines per hour.

Their clients span from the ministry of law, ministry of water resources and patan museum to Kathmandu-based international development organizations like UNICEF, UNDP, ICIMOD, DLGSP, GTZ, JICA, UNFPA, the World Bank, DFID, etc. Besides doing all the print work for the Himalmedia group, including Nepali Times, Himal Khabarpatrika and Wave magazine, Jagadamba Press also prints other high quality magazines like Nepal Traveller, Shangri-la in-flight magazine, The Boss, VOW, ECS, New Business Age as well as numerous other weekly newspapers and magazines. Jagadamba Press has produced the annual reports of most major banks in Nepal including Nabil, Kumari, Laxmi, Ace, etc.

“To ensure that all orders are carried out with consistently high standards of quality, reliability and within the competitive tariffs is our goal, we endeavour religiously to accomplish it. For better quality, we also use the consumables of high quality such as of Japan made Toyo ink, Malaysian inks, Indian inks and Web King heat set machine ink directly imported from Germany. Likewise we consume paper made in Germany, Finland Taiwan and India,” concluded Narayan.