中文Kongsberg Precision Cutting Systems and Parksons Packaging are marking a quarter-century of collaboration this year, a milestone that says as much about the maturation of India’s packaging industry as it does about two companies’ loyalty to one another. When Parksons installed its first Kongsberg digital sample-making table in 2001, it was the first such machine in the region — a statement of intent from a company that had been founded only five years earlier, in 1996, and was already betting that digital finishing would reshape how packaging is developed.
Twenty-five years on, that bet has been vindicated many times over. Parksons now operates eight Kongsberg cutting tables spread across eight production locations, anchoring a packaging operation that serves some of the most demanding end markets in the world: fast-moving consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, food, beverage and healthcare. The company’s portfolio spans folding cartons, liquid packaging and customized rigid boxes — applications where prototyping speed and sample fidelity directly determine how quickly a brand owner can move from concept to shelf.
The relationship, however, is no longer simply a buyer-supplier transaction. Over two and a half decades it has evolved into a continuous collaboration built around technical support, service responsiveness and joint problem-solving. Digital cutting has allowed Parksons to compress its sample-production cycle, broaden the range of packaging formats it can credibly offer, and bring new concepts to market measurably faster than conventional tooling-based approaches would allow. In a market where brand owners increasingly expect short lead times and frequent design iterations, that agility is a competitive asset in its own right.
Ramesh Kejriwal, Chairman of Parksons Packaging, framed the anniversary in terms of industry-wide impact rather than internal convenience. “Since bringing the first Kongsberg sample-making table to India, we have worked together to help raise the standards of packaging development across the market and cater to the different needs of brand owners,” he noted. The sentiment reflects a broader truth about capital equipment in the packaging sector: the machines matter, but the knowledge transfer, the service cadence and the willingness to co-develop solutions often determine whether an investment pays off.
Why does a 25-year partnership endure in an industry that is constantly being reshaped by automation, sustainability mandates and shifting consumer expectations? Part of the answer lies in the economics of digital cutting itself. Traditional sample making for packaging relied on physical tooling and manual craft, which constrained how many design variants a converter could practically evaluate before committing to a production run. Digital cutting tables remove much of that bottleneck, letting converters iterate rapidly and validate structural designs without the delays and costs of die creation. For a converter serving multinational brand owners, that capability is not a luxury — it is a precondition for winning and retaining high-value contracts.
India’s packaging sector has been one of the fastest-growing in the world, propelled by rising household consumption, urbanization, the formalization of retail and export-oriented manufacturing. Within that growth, the demand profile has shifted toward shorter runs, greater customization and faster turnaround — precisely the conditions under which digital finishing technologies thrive. Parksons’ steady expansion of its Kongsberg footprint tracks that shift closely: each additional table is a response to concrete capacity and capability requirements rather than speculative buying.
There is also a sustainability dimension. By enabling accurate prototyping and reducing the need for physical tooling, digital cutting helps converters minimize material waste during development and avoid costly mistakes in production. As brand owners face tightening environmental regulations and their own public commitments to waste reduction, finishing technologies that support leaner development workflows become strategically important.
For Kongsberg PCS, the Parksons relationship is a reference account — proof that long-term partnership, rather than transactional sales, builds durable market position. In the capital-equipment world, where purchasing cycles are long and switching costs are high, reference customers that visibly succeed with a vendor’s technology become magnets for new business. A quarter-century of shared growth is, in that sense, the most persuasive marketing asset a manufacturer can possess.
The anniversary also underscores how India has moved from being a follower in packaging technology adoption to a pace-setter in certain segments. Early adoption of digital cutting in 2001 placed Parksons at the frontier; two decades later, Indian converters are routinely specifying advanced finishing and automation as standard. The Parksons–Kongsberg story is, in microcosm, the story of that transition.
As the two companies look ahead, the logic of their collaboration is unlikely to change: faster development, broader capability and closer co-operation will remain the pillars. What will change is the technological backdrop — smarter software, tighter integration between design and finishing, and growing pressure to make every step of the packaging workflow more efficient and less wasteful. A partnership that has already survived two and a half decades of disruption is well positioned to absorb the next wave.
Source: Kongsberg PCS / Parksons Packaging announcement via INKISH.
