Head of finance and operations Grant Gerrits explains that this development and growth from humble beginnings over 30 years ago has been built on the backbone of partnerships within the company’s supply chain and with its customer base. ‘Boxlee has focused on building respect and trust into every relationship – be it social, professional, corporate or between our teams and leadership – each one is valued because it represents the core of our business,’ he emphasises.

Boxlee and Pride Pak Packaging have joined forces as two growing, like-minded businesses and leadership teams to establish even deeper roots in the market via the Everest Packaging Group. ‘We identified a route to extract more value through our collective efforts as two leading manufacturers and accelerate our growth in the agriculture market and with multinational companies by integrating and controlling our board supply,’ Grant reports.

In 2020, amidst the Covid-19 crisis, the Everest Packaging Group commissioned a Fosber 2.5m C/Line corrugator (configured to run single and double wall board) at the Everest Corrugated facility in the south of Johannesburg.

Grant notes that these developments and investments are prime examples of Boxlee strategically taking charge of and writing its own future story rather than waiting for the market to impact its business. ‘Taking such an aggressive view when Covid-19 first struck has been a strong part of our success,’ he asserts.

The other pillar of Boxlee’s success has been built on reviewing and significantly improving its business structure and operations. The starting point was redesigning the Industria-based plant’s process flow to accommodate greater capacities and start gearing towards greater automation by reviewing operational bottlenecks and identifying limiting factors. The management team systematically repositioned production lines and structured capital investment projects around a redesigned workflow and the process flows of the facility and organisation as a whole.

Once the flows were worked out, the focus turned to the evaluation of key assets, capabilities, product development and excellence, environmental sustainability and human capital.

Investing in value-addition production

Boxlee has partnered with Alliance Machinery on its value-addition production line equipment investment journey. MD Bradley Bate explains that as the sub-Saharan African agent for Eterna die-cutters and folder-gluers, which fall under the Bobst Group umbrella, Alliance Machinery shares Boxlee’s partnership ethos of building long-term relationships based on total transparency, trust and support.

‘Our partnership takes advantage of the strong alliance between the manufacturer (Eterna), die-maker and high-speed tooling supplier (Laserpac), plus fully qualified local customer service, engineering and process support (Alliance Machinery),’ Bradley states. ‘As a Bobst Group company, Eterna utilises the well-proven approach of developing fully integrated production lines to provide corrugated board converters with complete peace of mind. The benefits of this rigorously tested plug-and-play production platform philosophy – which allows converters to start with a stand-alone machine and add up and downstream peripheral equipment as their needs evolve – are single source supply and responsibility; an ergonomic, operator-friendly design; and very high output with minimal staffing to ensure a swift return on investment.’

In April 2020, Boxlee commissioned its second Eterna ECUT 1650 ELITE CLASS SA flatbed die-cutter as a replacement for a few older pieces of equipment to guarantee customers dimensionally identical cartons with consistent crease quality as well as vastly improve efficiencies and reduce operating costs.

With a maximum sheet size of 1 650 x 1 200mm and a feed rate of 6 000 sheets/hour, the ECUT ELITE can comfortably deliver around 7 000m² of converted material in an hour. In addition to its high productivity rate, the die-cutter’s precision has been improved through upgrades to the short stroke platen motion, dynamic gripper bar drive and sheet transfer system, he reports.

Further operator-friendly features include the latest lead edge suction feeder, motorised cutting force adjustment, chase loader and integrated quick locking of tools. Additionally, all machine elements are set from the operator side. Because they don’t need to leave the control panel area to make adjustments, operators can perform job changeovers within minutes.

Sample cutting

Shortly after the die-cutter installation, Boxlee ordered an iECHO TK4S large-format digital cutting system for its design centre from Alliance Machinery. The TK4S closes the loop on its R&D services by bringing the sample design, engineering and cutting of fit-for-purpose board grades in-house rather than outsourcing it. Grant explains that the investment has dramatically reduced turnaround times on R&D projects because the team can invite customers to the R&D Centre and catch up on business developments while the sample is being created or any small adjustments are being made.

According to Bradley, the iECHO system’s main differentiators are its robust build quality and precision cutting quality coupled with dedicated packaging design and die-making software from Arden/Cimex USA. Using the latest version of Cimpack’s software, Boxlee can quickly and easily generate carton designs to suit every corrugated packaging application.

Designs can be selected from an extensive FEFCO corrugated standards library or an array of mix-and-match options. In the unlikely event that the design team cannot find a suitable style, it can use Cimpack’s powerful CAD drawing tools to simply and rapidly create any design imaginable, he reports.

Designs can be visualised on screen in the 3D fold-up facility to check for functionality and customer pre-approval before manufacturing samples for final testing and approval.

Boxlee then sends the final designs to Laserpac for importing directly into its Cimpack systems to manufacture the cutting dies and stripping tools according to these specifications. This eliminates any potential errors that can occur through redesign or variances due to software incompatibility, Bradley maintains.

Boxlee can also choose to receive after-sales assistance online or on-site directly from Cimpack and Arden support staff or Laserpac’s designers as they have received extensive overseas training and utilise the latest versions of the software on a daily basis.

Folding and gluing

In March, Boxlee ordered an Eterna EFOLD ELITE 1700 Series to replace its older folder-gluer technology. ‘This new-generation Bobst Group technology, which was installed during the first week of July, represents a massive step up in Boxlee’s converting capabilities beyond straight-line and crash-lock cartons to providing four- and six-corner folding corrugated and cartonboard boxes,’ he enthuses. ‘By adding value to these products, Boxlee can now target a wider variety of work within its existing market and tap into the massive potential of new target markets.’

According to Bradley, the machine features that make these capabilities possible include the non-contact HHS glue application system that expertly applies glue to each carton, the heavy-duty side frames for perfect carton stability at high running speeds of up to 260m/min, wider belts that provide better AB flute stability and multiple squaring devices (front stop, back pusher and pneumatic jogging) that ensure the production of square cartons 100% of the time.

The week-long training sessions, provided by local factory-trained and accredited mechanical and electrical engineers, focused on the machine settings via the HMI, setting up of the squaring devices and equipment for four- and six-corner boxes (all new to the operators) and how to run the EFOLD 1700 at optimal speeds to suit their job needs. The local trainers will return for refresher and further advanced process training within the next few months or as needed by Boxlee.

Investing in upskilling

Grant adds that Boxlee values this training support because one of the company’s priorities has been to develop an ever-growing working and learning environment that supports a strong culture of excellence, accountability and humble assertiveness. The management team has, for instance, upgraded the facilities on the premises by introducing a training centre, staff centre, factory offices and boardrooms, a laboratory, design and development centre and an ink dispensary.

It has also redesigned skills metrics and focused on cross equipment training programmes for multi-skilling staff. ‘Firstly, we have invested heavily in on-site machine and product-specific technical training. Secondly, we have redesigned performance scorecards that track and measure individual, team and production plant performance,’ he explains.

Grant points out that the staff’s can-do attitude and performance responsibility are also reflected in Boxlee’s rebranding and modernised logo, which has been made more relevant and visually aligned to its position within the Everest Packaging Group. ‘This new branding, which we introduced in 2020, communicates the message that Boxlee will continue building, growing and making positive changes in even the most difficult of times to all who wear our logo on their chests, see it on company documentation and find it in the marketplace.’

He adds that this message has been reinforced by Boxlee’s strategic plan of action and growth trajectory during the past 18 months, which have demonstrated that the company and group of companies it belongs to are focused on and gearing towards what the future holds. ‘These investments in product development capabilities and production proficiency, in combination with our longstanding focus on establishing and building partnerships, underlie the value that Boxlee can add to existing and potential customers’ business strategies.’

When asked what the future holds, Grant smiles and says: ‘Keep watching this space to see how we can extract even more value from our supply chain and add it to our market offerings.’

Ed’s note: Boxlee is ISO 9001:2015 (quality management system), ISO 14001:2015 (environmental management system), ISO 22000:2018 (food safety) and ISO 45001:2018 (occupational health and safety management) accredited; FSC Chain of Custody certified and Level 1 B-BBEE rated.

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