Mahalaxmi Rubtech Ltd. (MRT) of the Ahmedabad-based Mahalaxmi Group, which was started 1991, specialises in blankets used on rotary or flat screen printing machines.
Mahalaxmi Rubtech’s plant at Sanand near Ahmedabad offers quality printing blankets. It has also set up a weaving plant to produce fabrics which go into manufacturing printing blankets, and is among the very few blanket producers in the world to turn out fabrics also.
With warping machines from Prashant Gamatex, sizing machines from Benninger and weaving machines from Dornier, Picanol and Nuovo Pignone, MRT manufactures blankets of 3.8 metres width.
In 2008, the company bought out the complete plant and machinery from Rollins of France, a market leader in the production of printing blankets, in order to expand production capacity.
In an exclusive interview, Mr. Rahul Parekh, Managing Director, Mahalaxmi Rubtech, explained: “The product design and construction of Impressions textile printing blankets are based on thorough analyses of the diverse environments in which they have to perform. Their construction takes into account the various factors that affect them in the long run, and they are exclusively fabricated to offer optimum performance under a wide range of working conditions, both in rotary and flat printing environments.”
Mr. Parekh said that since 1991, when it started making blankets, the company keeps developing technology in-house in an effort to offer quality blankets. Some of the technologies developed are the fabric stretching machine, finger joint machine and the latest addition of grinding machine.
Mahalaxmi is an OEM to several Indian printing machine manufacturers like Screenotex Engineers Pvt. Ltd., KB Engineers, Indian Textile Engineers, Stalmac Engineering Pvt. Ltd., Shanghai Pacific Dyeing & Printing Machinery Mfg. Co. Ltd. of China, Astromaquinas of Brazil and Chorng Lung Machinery Co. Ltd. of Taiwan.
MRT blankets lead in consistency, performance and registration accuracy of the print and are also rugged to handle even the harsh dyes and chemicals, when comparing with blankets produced by others.
“We offer value for money as we are not as expensive as overseas manufacturers and neither are we cheap when compared with other Indian printing blanket manufacturers, which is the main reason, why top mills endorse our blankets,” he said.
The new trend in textile printing is servo driven flat printing machine, and hence many printing houses across India have started adopting servo driven technology. The blankets for these machines are quite different and should also have a very good calibrated thickness.
In order to address this need, MRT developed in-house technology to grind the blanket to minimum thickness tolerance. The said machine, which came into operation recently, meets the requirements of the servo-driven printing technology. At ITMA 2015, the company launched and showcased the new blanket suitable for either single or double servo operated flat bed printing machines.
Mr. Parekh is optimistic that in the next five years most of the flat printing machines produced in India will be servo driven. This would give MRT, the only Indian company offering workable and real blanket solutions, an edge over the competitors in the field.
Mahalaxmi Rubtech exports its products to China, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Tanzania, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.