The family value business based in Clayville, Gauteng, is headed up by entrepreneurial dynamos Bruce and Nhle Nhleko, who transitioned from a FMCG product distribution business to plastics manufacturing in 2015.
Bruce explains that their ambition was to create a sustainable balance sheet and join up with a technical partner to help them develop the necessary business expertise, so they could bring their strategic SADC business experience to the venture and jointly grow and create more employment within the sector. This was also a time when corporates could transform their BEE scorecards by 40% through addressing their procurement strategies.
‘We met with Cliff Rostowsky, Bidvest Afcom’s MD, and he was very receptive to our vision and the fact that the group could gain 40 BEE scorecard points by just transforming one of its commodities, such as the palletwrap used to secure its pallet loads. We asked for meeting recommendations with the group’s suppliers who we could potentially join up with as our technical partners,’ Bruce states.
He reveals that they were successful on their third attempt after meeting with Francois Venter of PSA Plastics, which represented less than 1% of Bidvest Afcom’s palletwrap business. ‘Our desire to jointly build a secondary packaging legacy business by adding a cast extrusion line, raw materials and new technologies to PSA’s capabilities resonated deeply with Francois and, by July 2015, he agreed to give us the opportunity to be partners if we could secure a financial partner.’
After a year of negotiations with Absa, which included having to change policies within its BEE code guidelines, Pavati was awarded a favourable interest loan of R40-million as a member of Absa’s Supplier Development Programme. The Nhlekos used just over half to invest in their first cast extrusion line, which was installed and commissioned towards the end of 2017.
The second corporate player who liked the business model and could see its potential to compete on a global scale was Glynn Burger, the former CFO of Investec.
He met Bruce and Nhle with a BEE investment opportunity in Redfern Longrun Labels and explained how it fitted in with Pavati’s vision to partner technically with a printing packaging producer and expand into the primary flexible packaging arena. Nhle signed the seven-year purchase agreement in 2018, with the provision that both companies take a phased approached to eventually operating from one premises with a centralised back office.
Redfern Longrun Labels’ sales manager, Lee Barnard, introduced Nhle and Bruce to Soma Engineers’ commercial director, Pavla Kusa, and local market representative, Floors Coetzee of Sabre Equipment, towards the end of 2018 as the team was considering investing in an Optima flexo press. ‘We explained our long-term vision of creating a globally competitive group of companies and our phased approach in terms of building the necessary infrastructure and financial backing capabilities of a developmental institution such as the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and Department of Trade, Industry and Competition’s Black Industrialist Programme. The due diligence process for us to meet all their financial management and asset criteria ran from 2018 to mid 2020,’ Nhle recalls.
Bruce adds that Pavla understood the journey that they needed to take and started building an excellent relationship by offering technical help in terms of market development and costing understanding, access to circular economy/sustainability and other webinars, as well as advice on how the company could differentiate itself through extended colour gamut (ECG) printing and spec the machine to target the wider web market. ‘We honoured our commitment to Soma by shaking on the deal for the second generation Optima flexo press after physically seeing it in action at the K 2019 show in Düsseldorf, Germany,’ she notes.
Bruce and Nhle explain that the other part of Pavati’s decision to invest in Soma’s converting line equipment for the flexo printing division was their desire to employ a young team keen to learn about the print environment and follow a modernised business approach. This approach takes advantage of automation and digitisation to speed up the operators’ training and skills acquisition process while ensuring the highest quality output levels.
They decided to invest in the package deal, which also includes a fully automatic S-Mount plate mounter, Lamiflex E laminator and PLUTO III.2 slitter rewinder that are all linked via the cloud to Soma’s S-Chat platform for 24/7 technical assistance. This platform has been designed to function like WhatsApp and enable easy communication and sharing of information, such as files, pictures and instructional videos, from any S-Cloud-connected device.
Before Pavati could take delivery of the S-Mount plate mounter, Optima 2 flexo press, PLUTO III.2 slitter rewinder and Lamiflex E laminator in December 2021, a series of renovations had to be completed at the 15 600m2 flexible packaging converting facility, including levelling and epoxying of the floor.
Floors Coetzee explains that Sabre Equipment’s technical team completed the installation and commissioning of the machines in January as Soma’s technicians couldn’t travel to South Africa from the Czech Republic.
Plate mounting and printing
The S-Mount enables fully automatic plate mounting as well as plate topography and registration measurements via the IRIS feature, which is aided by banks of highly sensitive sensors that can pick up and notify the operator of any issues, for example, a bubble under the mounting tape. This patented feature ensures that the plates are 99% in registration and impression before they are mounted on the Optima 2 flexo press – minimising plate mounting errors and press downtime.
When the operator mounts the plates on the Optima 2, the press’s IRIS system scans the data chip inside the sleeve and automatically sets all active printing decks into impression and register in a couple of minutes with almost zero ink and material waste.
Floors lists other complementary automated time- and waste-saving features as an ink cartridge system designed to reduce ink volumes and residual waste; an on-board doctor blade and sealing exchange that maintains optimal ink pressure; a cantilevered dryer head with iDRY intuitive drying setting for optimal energy saving; the Ink Storm wash-up system, which keeps 0.6-litres of residual ink in the system to monitor and optimise time, solvent and air consumption; a colour setting and matching system that assists the operator to reach brand owner specification quickly; as well as an online energy and efficiency monitoring system.
He points out that to ensure the best possible print quality, Soma’s engineers have focused on optimal dynamics, rigidity and material properties in terms of the frames and printing deck designs and manufacturing processes. The printing unit frame consists of two cast-iron single-block side frames with inserted drum mounting where the complete side of the print module is cast, annealed, machined, painted and assembled as a whole to eliminate any possible bounce issues.
Advanced bounce control also features from a specially designed software algorithm perspective, with second-generation technology minimising the bouncing effect for each particular design via a special drive tuning procedure during the automated job set-up process.
Laminating, slitting and rewinding
The next machine in the line is the Lamiflex E, which is designed to laminate a wide range of substrates, including thin and difficult films, thanks to the tension control range of 20 to 400N at its unwind station and 20 to 500N at its rewind station. This is complemented by a three-loop design with individual thermo-controlled units for the dosing rollers, application roller and lamination roller.
According to Floors, this three-roller lamination also ensures high rigidity, a small rubber contact area and a large angle of incoming material for perfect lamination and air bubble elimination in the final laminate. Additionally, a water cooled cylinder ensures laminate cooling before rewinding, which eliminates roll telescoping.
The PLUTO III.2 slitter rewinder is the final piece of complementary equipment in the line for the press and laminator. It’s designed with an integrated unwind unit to run at a maximum speed of 605m/min as well as three servomotors. The first one drives the main drive roller, lay-on rubber rollers, knife shafts and banana roller. The unwind AC servomotor (in combination with a dance roller) controls the tension of the parent roll, while the third AC motor drives both rewind shafts.
The servomotors work in conjunction with the Tenzomat II tension control system to enable precise unwind and rewind tension control during the whole operating cycle in a closed loop and the slitting of various thin and difficult-to-handle substrates. In addition, strip holders automatically hold the web in place and maintain the tension in slit strips during job changeovers.
Skills development
Pavati Plastics has appointed Graeme Lintnaar, who has 25 years’ flexible packaging industry experience and previously worked on an Optima press at Cibapac in Cape Town, as the print unit manager to train up Dominic Thobejane on the printing press, plate mounter, Brian Maphoso on the laminator, and Masesi Johanna Makhubela on the slitter rewinder.
Graeme confesses to being an ardent Soma flexo press supporter because the automation features make it so simple to use. ‘Dominic, who was previously the extrusion team’s supervisor and had no printing background, has progressed very well over the past three months and by the sixth-month mark will be a highly competent operator and able to take over on night shift when required so that I can train a new day shift operator,’ Graeme explains.
Bruce adds that the major benefit of this line investment being funded by the IDC is that there is less pressure to jump into commercial jobs right away to meet KPIs. ‘This allows time to ensure proper training and skills transfer and for the operators to build their capabilities and confidence levels,’ he states.
Future forward
What is next for the Pavati Plastics team? Before the end of the first quarter, Bruce reveals that the extrusion division will finalise the installation and commissioning of a second Colines line and first CPP with MDO line, while the design team will complete the group’s new corporate identity and branding. And, before the end of the year, the flexible packaging division will invest in a second Optima 2 flexo press to provide corporate customers with the peace of mind that there is a backup press in place to carry on printing their jobs in case of a breakdown.
A review of the group’s power mix will also be instituted during 2022 to explore the feasibility of gas and solar sources for its operations. These alternatives, Bruce notes, will help to combat Eskom’s ageing infrastructure and improve Pavati’s energy efficiencies and costs.
Over the next 18 months, the team will also be working on a business case for its recycling plant to progress its capabilities beyond industrial recycling for the group’s needs to servicing the greater market’s needs. This is part of its long-term strategy, which will support its end-to-end value chain quality control and sustainability vision and ultimately enable mono-material flexible packaging production in South Africa.
Consumables partners
PAVATI PLASTICS SOUTHERN AFRICA has chosen the Flint Group as its ink partner and Polyflex and Acme Graphics as its printing plate suppliers because all three companies have access to different global expertise and perspectives in terms of extended colour gamut (ECG) research, development and technical projects, explains MD Mthobisi Bruce Nhleko.
‘All three partners’ international excellence centres or alliance partners are finding the sweet spot in terms of ECG, and can, therefore, help us to determine the best ways of managing costs, etc. when the entire market is ready to change over to ECG printing,’ Bruce states.
Pavati’s production team will spend the next few months fingerprinting the inks and printing plates on the types of films it will be running through the Soma Optima 2 flexo press as it gears up for full-scale commercial production.
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