BOXOVIA OPTS FOR PRO-LINE

PRIVATELY OWNED BUSINESS BUILDS NEW FACILITY IN PUNE, WESTERN INDIA AND ADDS STATE-OF-THE-ART TRIPLEWALL CORRUGATOR FROM FOSBER ASIA.

In 1967, Pooranchand Bansal set up a small packaging business which he operated from the basement of his house. From that day, the family has been in the corrugated packaging business ever since and have grown successfully over the years.

But now has come a new chapter, as the family looks to revolutionise not only its own business, but also the corrugated industry in India. Using a completely new approach and by building a new brand in the corrugated industry, a new company has been launched, called Boxovia. Its owners are Shrinivas Bansal (son of the founder) as Managing Director and his son, Udit Bansal as Director.

Diverse Portfolio

Boxovia supply corrugated packaging to a wide range of industries, from automobile to retail. Additionally, they have customers in heavy engineering, e-commerce, fresh produce, FMCG and White Goods. “We are focused on designing innovative solutions for our customers and hence work across industries,” explains Udit Bansal. “The bulk of our customers are located in western India, but we have several customers across the country and export to the Middle East as well. Most of the packaging provided by us is used by our customers to export their products around the world.”

New Facility 

As part of Boxovia’s development and expansion, the family has invested heavily and built a new facility. Located 50km outside the city of Pune in Western India, the area is a hub for manufacturing in India and is also strategically located 200km from Mumbai, the commercial capital and the nearest port. Today, Boxovia employ 300 people across two plants.

The new factory sits on a site of 20 acres. “Currently we have built on 50% of the permissible area for the new corrugated board plant,” says Udit Bansal. “The rest of the site is set aside for future expansion in other paper products.”

The corrugated plant is 30,000 sqm of covered space, of which 15,000 sqm is for board making and 15,000 sqm for conversion. “We plan to offer all types of corrugated packaging to our customers, from F flute high quality printed boxes to AAA triplewall for heavy duty applications,” continues Udit Bansal. “As well as in-house corrugator, we also have a range of offset printers, laminators, flexo printers, die-cutters, folder gluers and stitchers to cater to a large variety of products required by our customers. Our board making runs in a single shift, conversion in two shifts and packing and deliveries in three shifts.”

He continues, ”The plant is designed keeping in mind the needs of global companies and has all government, health and safety compliance in place to cater to the strict requirements of brands looking to export from India.”

A Market First 

At the heart of the new facility is a new corrugator, which started up in August 2021. The machine in question is a Fosber Asia Pro/Line, the first of its type in India. With such high performance and ability to produce double and triplewall board, it could have been a big step to take, but the owners felt it would give them significant advantages in the years to come.

“While India is a big country, there are not many high speed fully automatic corrugators,” explains Udit Bansal. “The Fosber line we chose is the first high speed, fully automatic 7 ply line in India. Choosing a machine like this for India could be seen as a bit of a risk. For example, it is not easy to get trained operators for such machines we had to be sure of a good availability of spare parts. In order to make this project successful, we were looking for a company who can support us not only by providing a good machine, but also by giving us the correct guidance to operate and maintain such a machine. After discussions with many major manufacturers, we felt that Fosber would be the best option. They had a product that was excellent and suitable for the Indian market, but more importantly their approach was that of a partner rather than a supplier which we see as very beneficial in making this project a success.”

Challenging Project 

Due to COVID-19 related restrictions, installation was one of the most challenging aspects of the entire project. “Fosber engineers from Italy could not fly to India for the installation,” recounts Udit Bansal. “However, Fosber Asia’s local engineers and our engineering team – along with full remote support of the Fosber teams in Italy and China – worked incredibly hard to have the machine installed. While it took slightly longer than normal, it is quite remarkable that all of this has been pulled off successfully with all the travel bans in place for the last couple of years.”

“Fosber Asia’s local engineers and our engineering team – along with full remote support of the teams from Italy and China – worked hard to have the machine installed.”

-UDIT BANSAL, DIRECTOR

Udit Bansal concludes, “Our hope with this machine is to completely revolutionise the corrugated business in India. Most customers in the region make do with below par quality of board due to cost and quantity restrictions. However, with this new machine, we will be able to manufacture the highest quality boards and be in a position to offer customers cost savings and material savings that can also add to their sustainability credentials. Apart from this, using the superior automation of the machine, we will be able to change orders faster with minimum wastage, so that we can cater to small volumes and a large variety of customers as well. With flexibility being the key requirement of customers going forward, we feel we will be in a good position to cater to their demands in the future thanks to the new Pro/Line from Fosber Asia.”

——Source: IPBI March 2022 Issue 3

  https://www.thepackagingportal.com/digital-issues/march-ipbi-2022/