Nahar Poly Films (India) Installs General K5000 Metallizer For New BOPP Film Production

Established in 1949 as manufacturers & exporters of cotton hosiery & knitwear products, the Nahar Group of Companies, located in Ludhiana, (Punjab) approx. 300 km north of New Delhi in northern India, has expanded its business rapidly and last year made an important strategic decision to diversify its business in to the BOPP (bi-axially oriented polypropylene) film business.

This was a logical step forward for this important Indian textile giant, currently with a Group sales turnover exceeding USD $500m, taking in to consideration the steep rise in demand in recent years for flexible packaging materials reflecting the rapidly developing fast moving consumer goods (fmcg) market on the Indian sub-continent.

A radical re-structuring of the Group's activities enabled it to consolidate the textile business under a separate umbrella and focus more clearly on future business expansion in accordance with shareholders' and stakeholders expectations.

It was agreed that the new BOPP film production facility would to be located at Mandideep Raisen, in Madhya Pradesh State with films being sold to the flexible packaging industry, in both the domestic and international market.

India's expanding organised retail business has provided ample opportunities for growth in this new manufacturing activity. The brand new BOPP film production plant at Mandideep will be equipped with a highly efficient and flexible 8.7m wide high-speed film line, together with an 8.7m wide Atlas primary film slitter and a high performance General K5000 vacuum metallizer. Two Atlas CW800 secondary slitters will also be installed with one compact Titan ER610 slitter rewinder for narrower width film slitting.

The K5000 has been very successful for GVE with more than 25 machines now in production worldwide. This is mainly due to its high quality and high throughput characteristics combined with low running costs, which provide the user with a strong competitive edge in the market.

Featuring all the latest state-of-the-art technology in film orientation, the new film line will produce over 30,000 tonnes of BOPP packaging film per year and will help establish Nahar Poly Films as one of the leading Indian film manufacturers. The unit is under the dynamic leadership of Mr. Dinesh Oswal, Managing Director and Mr. Sanjay Karandikar (G.M.Tech), who is heading the project, with all relevant experience in the film Industry.

"We chose Bobst Group as a preferred supplier because of its position as a technology leader in the converting industry and its global presence with local support operations in India," confirmed Mr. Karandikar.

The new K5000 vacuum metallizer and Atlas & Titan slitter rewinders will be installed at Nahar Poly Films early in 2010.