Profit-making packaging through automation

A highlight was the world première of Lila II, a new folder-gluer from Bobst, designed with the needs of litho-laminated and corrugated board packaging manufacturers in mind.

As Venugopal Menon, VP, Bobst India, remarked, ‘Packaging manufacturers in markets such as India no longer have unlimited access to labour and space. Increasingly, they need automation to keep costs down in order to remain competitive in local, regional and world markets. In this way they can also grow their businesses.’

Bobst technologies on show included the recently-launched Novacut 106 ER die-cutter (the first South African installation of which is at Shave & Gibson in Durban: see PPM February 2015).

According to Venugopal Menon, the Novacut was a clear attraction to many converters, since blanking is a new concept in the Indian market. Currently, he explains, most folding carton producers in the region die-cut their work, with waste being manually stripped. Even where in-line stripping is used, cartons still have to be separated by hand for downstream processing such as folding and gluing. Blank separating eliminates these manual processes and has a further benefit in that some work which cannot be stripped can be successfully blanked using double-cut layouts.

Lila’s world début

Making its world début was the new Lila II, which impressed visitors with its smooth blank transportation, excellent folding quality and high productivity, easily handling both microflute and heavy corrugated board.

This folder-gluer represents an extension of the successful Lila range for litho-laminated box production into the 1 450mm and 1 700mm widths needed by corrugated packaging manufacturers.

Its fast running and quick setting delivers outstanding productivity to reduce cost per box. The machine is also available in 1 060mm and 1 260mm widths for folding carton and litho-laminated box production.

Complementing the machine demonstrations, Bobst partners presented new technologies in a range of areas from window patching to adhesive application and from board composition to robotics. Among these partners were Baumer hhs, Billerud Korsnas, Esko, Henkel, Robatech and WH Leary.

As always, local enquiries regarding Bobst equipment should be directed to Beswick Machinery.