Thepresent Lithrone S40 replaces a secondhand Lithorone 526, a five-colour press and will run alongside the firm’s first Lithorone 426 (four-colour press bought in 2007), a Hasimoto four-colour press and two single-colour presses from Heidelberg and Manugraph.

Unique Offset operates from two locations, one in the Pune city and the other a 10,000 sq/ft site on the Sinhagad Road, where the new S40 has been installed.

The new Komori, a high pile press automated press, the first KHS-AI operates at a speed of 16,000sph. "The quick makeready has saved time, and the speed has enhanced our production capacity, though we have been using it at only 12000sph," said Nandkumar Navale, who along with Mandar Thakurdesai are the owners of Unique Offset.

Both Navale and Thakurdesai, print technologists, started print business as offset plate suppliers in 1991. "The plate supply business flourished during the first few years but as printers started bringing platemaking process in-house, work reduced," said Thakurdesai. That’s the time, the duo decided on doing something different.

The duo set up Unique Offset and installed a brand new four-colour press, a Manugraph Shiva when other printers in Pune were buying secondhand presses. This was followed by purchase of the first Komori Spica 426, a secondhand Lithrone 526, a Kodak Trendsetter 800 CTP system, two cutting machines, two perfect binding machines and a stitching machine.

The firm has since been registering incremental turnover, which now stands at Rs 5-crore per annum. "While the Shiva helped us earn the confidence of our customers, the new Spica doubled our capacity," said Navale.

He added: "And the new S40, loaded with smart sequence of automation from the end of production of one job to start of the final printing on the next job has reduced wastage; the size and ability of the press to print on paper thickness from 60gsm to 900gsm, enlarges our scope of work – from commercial to packaging."

The firm which has purchased the machine under the Export Promotional Capital Goods scheme and against the run of the Japanese Yen, hopes to offset any hiccup in the fluctuation in currency rates by "increasing the present 40 jobs per day to 60 jobs per day."