Rossini, the Italian manufacturers of rubber rollers, sleeves and mandrels for flexography and gravure presses, has set up a new manufacturing plant in Pune. The 8,000 sq/m factory based out of Chakan near Pune, will be operational from May 2014. Mumbai-based Scanvik Packaging, the Indian representatives of Rossini since 2000, will look after the sales and marketing of Rossini India, informed Ashvin Hebbar, business development head, Scanvik Packaging.

Speaking to PrintWeek India at Plastivision 2014, Hebbar said, “Rossini supplies sleeves and rollers to all the major OEMs for flexography and gravure presses such as Cerutti, Comexi and Bobst. Also, Indian manufacturers like Kohli Industries, Expert Industries, Pelican Rotoflex, Uflex etc use Rossini sleeves and rollers on their presses. Hence the demand is huge.” Rossini’s manufacturing set-up in India, its only factory in Asia, was driven by customer demands, said Hebbar, adding, “Importing of rubber rollers, which is a combination of rubber and steel, is quite expensive as compared to sleeves. The requirement in huge and with presence in India, Rossini will be able to tap the Asian market in more aggressive way.”

The Pune factory will be able to produce up to 10,000 rollers per month. Rossini’s mother plant in Italy manufactures the rubber component, which is supplied to all the daughter plants to produce the rollers. This helps to maintain the consistency in quality of the product. Hebbar added, “We have plans to strengthen Rossini’s presence in neighbouring countries such as China and Sri Lanka and also extend it to Middle East countries once the factory goes operational in May 2014.

Source: rubberworld.com