China’s Dongguan Longxingsheng Machinery promises ‘carefree solutions for rigid box making’. The company, based in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China, has its own independent R&D department led by Tsinghua University professors. The company has specialised in semi-automatic post-press packaging equipment for more than 10 years.

Delhi-based Ample Graphics represents Longxingsheng Machinery in India.

According to Lyla Lyu of Dongguan Longxingsheng Machinery, the Indian market is facing the same situation that the Chinese market faced five years ago. “With the labour advantage, I believe, the rigid box market in India is going to grow at least four-five times in the next three years,” she said.

One of the reasons is the growth of the cell phone business. With more and more cell phone companies setting shop in India, the demand will only go up. “Not just the cell phone boxes, there is a marked rise in the demand for related products, such as power bank, screen film, ear phone and so on. You need packaging for these products as well,” she added.

Lyu said Longxingsheng has already received more than 100 inquiries from Indian printers looking for a suitable solution to start a rigid box plant. “This is also our focus at Longxingsheng, to help converters who want to explore the rigid box segment and grow,” she said. “With different configurations of our rigid box machinery, we are able to help our customers start from a stable semi-automatic line with functional and stable performance to handle all kind of rigid boxes, such as slant side box, round side box, and so on. Later, when the converter starts getting more orders, we can upgrade the existing machine to be more automatic, even fully automatic.”

Lyu argued that since rigid box is a new product, operators on the shopfloor are not experienced or trained well. She said Longxingsheng machines can help reduce labour cost. It also helps reduce rejection, add better finishing and save on glue. All these, ultimately, will lower the cost-per-box.

Compared to other options available in the market, Lyu said Longxingsheng machines are more affordable. “A customer can start from a semi-automatic line, and upgrade to automatic later. The machines also afford fast job changing, helping customers do different jobs in a day.”