INDUSTRIAL VISIT
at Madan Packaging Pvt. Ltd.
KHUSHBOO CHORARIA | F&LA 2014-18 | ROLL NO. 11
OBJECTIVE The mere objective of making this report is to analyse the working of a corrugated box packaging industry and gather information about the product i.e. corrugated box. Most importantly understand the process involved in making them One had to document all this into a informative report for personal understanding and future reference.
CONTENTS ABOOUT THE COMPANY
01
CORRUGATED BOX
02
Process involved
03
OVERVIEW
04
Description Components Types of fiberboard Properties Standard Designs Types of Flutes
Raw Materials Making Corrugated Fiberboard Creasing and Slitting Printing Gluing and Constructing Quality Check Bundling Shipping
ABOUT THE COMPANY MADAN PACKAGING PVT LTD, are manufacturer and supplier of corrugated boxes, paper and paper boards in Kolkata, West Bengal. They have around 55 workers in their factory and their working hour is from 9 am to 5 pm from Monday to Saturday. LOCATION ■■ 63/2b, Khudiram Bose Sarani, Belgachia, Kolkata, West Bengal - 700037 ■■
CONTACT ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■
Managing Director Factor Manager Email Id Phone
- Milan Dey - Mustak Khan - 033 25565109/7803 9830056963
corrugated boxes The company deals in making corrugated boxes for their clientele according to their preference of size, quality and design. The raw material used for making them is a special kind of heavy paper called kraft paper, which takes the shape of corrugated fiberboard also known as corrugated paperboard. Corrugated fiberboard is a material consisting of a fluted corrugated sheet and one or two flat linerboards. It is made on “flute lamination machines” or “corrugators” and is used in the manufacture of shipping containers and corrugated boxes. It has two has two main components : ■■ Liner ■■ ■■ ■■ Medium
: is the flat material, typically on the outer surfaces of the board but also on the inside for some structures, that adheres to the medium. : is the paper that is formed into arches or flutes on the single facer and glued between the liner facings by the flute lamination machines.
It can be of many types : ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■
Single Faced : It is used as pads, partitions, wrapping fragile articles. It has one liner and one medium. Single Wall : By virtue of its structure it has strength and rigidity and is used for making boxes. It has two liner and one medium. Double Wall : It has greater strength and cushioning property. It is made up of two liner and one medium. Triple Wall : It has exceptional rigidity and high puncture resistence. It is made up of two liner and two mediums.
LINER
MEDIUM
Several properties and characteristics can be measured for corrugated board. Included are: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■
Edge crush test Burst strength Flat crush test Bending resistance Impact resistance Cushioning, shock absorption Tear resistance Grammage (mass per unit of area)
There are different types of standard deisgn used : ■■ Regular Slotted Container (RSC) : ■■ In which all flaps are the same length from score to edge. Typically the major flaps meet in the middle and the minor flaps do not. ■■ FOL (Full Overlap) : ■■ It is similar to an RSC except the major flaps fully overlap. The flaps provide extra stacking strength and edge protection. ■■ HSC (Half Slotted Container) : ■■ It is similar to an RSC, but with only one set of flaps. They are useful when an open-top container is desired. HSCs can be used to create a telescope box. ■■ Full Telescope Box : ■■ It has two fully telescoping sections. The sections may be formed by staples, die-cut locks, ■■ adhesive, etc. ■■ Partial Telescope Box : ■■ It has two sections. The top telescopes partially over the bottom. Commonly used for ■■ holding printing paper.
There are many types of corrugation : Flute size refers to the number of flutes per linear foot, although the actual flute dimensions for different corrugator manufacturers may vary slightly. Measuring the number of flutes per linear foot is a more reliable method of identifying flute size than measuring board thickness, which can vary due to manufacturing conditions. The most common flute size in corrugated boxes is “C� flute. FLUTE A-Flute ( Board ) B-Flute ( Narrow ) C-flute ( Medium ) E-Flute ( Micro )
CORRUGATION/FLUTES PER METER 105 to 125 150 to 165 120 to 145 200 to 320
FLUTE HEIGHT IN MM 4.5 TO 4.7 2.1 to 2.9 3.5 to 3.7 1.1 to 1.5
PROCESS INVOLVED Packaging engineers design corrugated boxes to meet the particular needs of the product being shipped, the hazards of the shipping environment and the needs of retailers and consumers. Production of making corrugated box involves following steps : 1. Procuring raw materials 2. Making corrugated fiberboard 3. Creasing and Slitting of the fiberboard 4. Printing on the fibereboard 5. Construction of fiberboard into box 6. Quality Check of the corrugated box 7. Bundling of the boxes 8. Shipping to the Clients.
STEP 1 - RAW MATERIALS The key raw material in corrugating is paper, different grades for each layer making up the corrugated box. Due to supply chain and scale considerations, paper is produced in separate plants called paper mills. The company procure kraft paper from different paper mills, like Ruby, Astron and locally from balavpur, Most corrugating plants keep an inventory of paper reels. Different types of reels are available with different bust factor and gsm, where the bust factor starts from 12 and goes upto 34, and gsm can vary like 100, 120, 180, 220, etc. As shown in the image, the details are wriiten in order of Weight, GSM, Bust Factor and Reel Size. For example; it is wriiten as 854 W | 140 | 18 | 162
Another important raw material for corrugating is glue. Starch based adhesive is used as it is economical. For preparing the glue, elements like starch, water, chemicals like borax, caustic soda are required. For example if they have to make a 600 ml solution, 150 kg starch 30 kg cautic 5 kg borax is mixed together in ratio of 30:6:1 along with water as per the constantcy required. STEP 2 - MAKING CORRUGATED FIBERBOARD The raw materials are now used to make corrugated fiberboard. It is done both though classic corrugators or full automatic corrugators. In the classical corrugator, the paper is softened with high-pressure steam. It makes only single-face also known as 2 ply fiberboard. In this machine, two paper reels are inserted, then they are passed through different belts. At the single-facer belt , it is heated, moistened, and formed into a fluted pattern on geared wheels. This is then joined to a flat linerboard with the starch based adhesive along with the to form single face board. The resulted fiberboard is then cut by the roller cutters which can be adjusted manually. These kind of machines are used for making small packaging for eyeliners, stapler or as partitons.
In fully automatic corrugators, corrugated board is manufactured on large high-precision measures, usually running at about 500 feet per minute (150 m/min) or more. The firm genrally makes 3 ply or 5 ply i.e single wall or double wall. It is also known as automatic board line machine. Their machine supports reel size from 70 to 165 cms. As all corrugators, paper reels are inserted at different levels of making corrugated fibereboard. First 2 ply and 4 ply are made which travels through overbridge rollers and joined with the single ply to make 3 ply and 5 ply. After the board is formed it is dried in the so-called drying chamber. Here the newly formed corrugated board is heated from the bottom by hot plates. On the top, pressure is applied by a load system on the belt. STEP 3 - CREASING & SLITTING Then it is passed through the slitter scorer also known as rotary machine which is used to give height to the box. It creates slits vertically and create crease or score horizontally through pressure to provide controlled bending of the board. After creasing, it is passed through NC Cutter, which is used to cut the board horizontally. Most often, slots are cut to provide flaps on the box. Hence, we get the actually layout of the corrugated box which now needs to be printed & attached.
STEP 4 - PRINTING Flexo printing is used to print on the boxes. The size, color and design is done according to the client preference. Printing dies and patterns are prepared on large, flexible, rubber or tin sheets. Their company uses rubber sheets for printing which are loaded onto rollers and the box blanks are fed through it, The company get their rubber sheets outsourced. Ordinary shipping containers are designed to dispense the contents and require printing and labels to identify the contents, STEP 5 - GLUING AND CONSTRUCTION After printing is done on the boxes, they are glued or attached for construction of the boxes. The manufacturer’s joint is most often joined with adhesive but may also be taped or stitched or stapled depending on the perference of the client. The client mostly perfer joining with adhesive i.e fevicol as it is easy to put and it does not leave sharp edges like staples which can rapture the product like plastic bags. The joining is done manually for small size boxes that can be fit into the machine i.e semi-automatic gluer.
STEP 6 - QUALITY CONTROL One of the important functions of a corrugated box is to provide crush resistance (product protection) and adequate strength for stacking in warehouses. Box compression testing is a means of evaluating boxes, with respect to field conditions of stacking and dynamic compression. Compression strength can be estimated based on container construction, size, and used parameters. Burst Strength testing is a means of evaluting the rupture strength of the box against rough handling. In other words it tests the protecting strenth of the boxes. Bursting strength can be estimated based on the tensile strength and stretch elongation of the corrugated fiberboard. STEP 7 - BUNDLING & STACKING The boxes are shipped flat (knocked down) to the packager i.e the client, who sets up the box, fills it with their product and closes it for shipment for end users. Therefore all the boxes are bundled togther and stacked according to the specific orders that are to be delivered to the different clients before they are shipped.
STEP 8 - SHIPPING When the orders are completed and stacked in a place, they are noted and loaded into a truck for shippment along with a invoice of the contents to be delivered to a client. Generally, 5000 to 10000 boxes can be shipped at once in a truck.
OVERVIEW OF The COMPANY The company has been in this business for quite a long time now. They use to export to foreign clients earlier but now delays only nationally for the brands like Britaania, ITC, Parle, Fito Lays, Bingo, etc. They get orders of minimum 1000 to 5000 pieces. The orders are generally sent within Kolkata or mostly to Noida, Patna, and Guwahati. The comapny can manufacture around 15000 to 17000 boxes in an hour and can make upto 40000 to 50000 boxes in a day. The cost of the boxes manufactured depends on the quality, bust strength and gsm of paper used. Generally the cost of good quality boxes varies from 22 to 35 rupees per box. The machines are generally purchased form China, Japan or Germany. The german machines are the most costly due to it’s efficiency and precision. The company has placed an order for fully automatic corrugation machine from Germany, in which all the stages of manufacturing are combined i.e from making corrugated fiberboard to construction of boxes. With the help of the new machine the company will be able to make 2 lakh boxes in a day in a stretch. This will not only increase their sales but also reduce their labour cost leading to less cost price.
KHUSHBOO CHORARIA F&LA 2014-18 ROLL NO. 11