Uflex first European manufacturing project was supported by the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency and will be located in Poland.India’s UFLEX Group (formerly known as the Flex Group) is one of the world’s 5 largest manufacturers of flexible packaging films (flexible laminates & pouches, plain and metallised BOPET/BOPP/CPP/coextruded films). In keeping with its core policy of being as close as possible to its customers, it is taking a major step forward in its international operations by investing in a large manufacturing facility in Europe. Its first European manufacturing project will be located in Poland. The first phase of this operation will be the setting up of an 8.7 meter wide/500 meters per minute Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BOPET) Film line and a high-barrier plasma enhanced vacuum metallising plant near Poznan in central Poland.
The plant is being set up under the aegis of Flex Film Europa Sp.z.o.o. The state-of-the-art BOPET Film plant will be one of the world’s largest film lines and will be capable of turning out about 36,000 MT (about 80 million lbs.) of film annually. The total investment in the first phase will be US$ 90 million and the plant is due to start commercial production in mid-2012. This facility will enable European users of BOPET films to obtain their requirements at short call.
Poznan is considered Poland’s second most prosperous city after Warsaw. It is a well-known centre for trade, industry, education and culture. Many leading multinational corporations have manufacturing plants located in the Poznan area.
UFLEX decided to set up the plant in Central Poland after a detailed study of various alternative locations. Poland is very centrally located in Europe and is close to most user markets in that region. Poznan has good industrial infrastructure and many well-known international companies have large plants operating here. This makes for good availability of quality manpower and engineering facilities. Poznan is also well-known for being a leading hub for trade, education and culture.
The UFLEX Group is India’s largest Flexible Packaging conglomerate and is the world’s only fully vertically integrated company in this business. Its products include plain and metallised films, flexible packaging laminates, bags and pouches, PET resins, holographic materials, printing inks and coatings, adhesives, rotogravure cylinders, flexographic plates, packaging machinery and converting machinery. All these products are manufactured in-house in state-of-the-art global scale facilities and present annual revenues are about INR 40 billion (US$ 870 million). It has manufacturing plants located in India, Dubai, Mexico and Egypt.
Because of its extensive domain knowledge of every link of the Flexible Packaging value chain, it offers a wide variety of customised end-to-end packaging solutions for almost any application. Its depth of understanding and expertise enable the delivery of optimum packaging solutions to its customers.
The Group is a leading international player in Flexible Packaging with an extensive global manufacturing and marketing footprint. At last count, its products are used in 103 countries and this number is going up all the time.
Two more new 8.7 meter BOPET Film lines are under installation – one each at its Mexico and Egypt facilities - and a new CPP Film line is under commissioning at Egypt. With the lines presently under installation, UFLEX will emerge as one of the world’s top three BOPET Film producers. Almost all the Group plants are certified as being compliant with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 specifications. The Mexico facility has recently been accredited with ISO 9001:2008 certification, a further testament to the company’s total commitment to the highest quality standards.
The Group has a long and impressive track record of winning prestigious international awards for product quality, innovation and corporate performance year after year. Ever since its inception in 1983, it has maintained a consistent double-digit annual rate of growth that has been one of the highest in the global Packaging industry.
The Group has plans on its anvil to further extend manufacturing operations to new strategic locations in other parts of the world to service customers’ requirements better.
