Indian company Precision Cutting System plans to target the Middle Eastern market with its print inspection systems.
Comments company owner Devashish Patwardhan says, ‘Our major focus will not be on cutting machine programs but on camera-based inspection system for pharma printers. The inspection system detects printing and feeding defects in machines.’
‘We have installed couple of systems in Dubai with the support of freelance dealers, but we are on work in progress to find out how big is the demand for such systems in neighboring countries and cities.’
The company has plans to invest on digital marketing for acquiring customers in the region. ‘We will also take part in physical exhibition as it works for us,’ shares Patwardhan.
Precision largely caters to commercial and package printers.
Pandemic imposed challenges in business
Patwardhan shares that the company’s cutting machine program business was going well in the region before pandemic. ‘We started seeing difficulties in business with covid. Because of the pandemic the entire supply chain has been disrupted.’ However, the company has recently sold three to four programs in the last couple of months but that is still nowhere matches to the pre covid levels. ‘The demand of cutting machine program is higher in Africa than ME as there is also a demand for Chinese machines in the region which comes equipped with automation.’ ‘We are facing delays in payments, and it is effecting our operations,’ says Patwardhan. The sentiment of the market is not quite positive for capital investments hence making it challenging for suppliers to close an order. ‘The product price competition is quite challenging in the ME market. Suppliers who sell programs in a lesser price do not provide good after-sales service. However, our customer service and technical support is quick and timely, we keep our prices low,’ states Patwardhan.
Is demand for cutting machine programs decreasing?
‘There’s a rising preference for upgradation of machines,’ says Patwardhan. He says that converters invest in secondhand machines because the brand-new machines are not cost effective. Secondhand machines are durable but lack automation, making production a tedious process. When the machine is equipped with a cutting machine program the production time decreases. ‘Since the automation program is available, converters do not see a need of purchasing new machineries for limited number of advantages and so they go for our program.’ Patwardhan says, ‘the cutting machine program is required by third world countries that buys secondhand manual cutting machines. We install the program in such machines and make it automated as it increases production by at least two to three times.’
Growth in sales of secondhand offset presses
‘There will be a growth in the sales of secondhand presses. These secondhand machines are imported from Europe and sold in Asian and ME countries and there are enough machines in Europe for the sales numbers to go back to pre-covid levels.’Patwardhan believes that digital printing is new and not a lot of converters are using it and it will take time for converters to shift from traditional ways of printing to digital. ‘Digital printing machines are way costlier than offset printing machines and not a lot of people have knowledge to run it.’
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