October - December 2013
Fed e Box ration of MANU FAC Corru TURER ga S of ted India
Mem Direc bers’ tory 2013
Opens up new levels of Speed, Efficiency and Productivity in Corrugated Packaging
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Beyond the Century in Corrugating Lines Over 126 Automatic Corrugated Board Plants Installed across India and Overseas 1st 5 ply high speed (80 mtr. speed) plant in Maharastra Navi Mumbai
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The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 1
From Single Facers and Creaser Slotters... to Flexo Printers and Rotary Die Cutters Always Ahead Than The Extant...
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2 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
During over two decades of experience, we continue to “stay ahead than the extant” offering sound solutions to box makers in India and across the world. With machines that are designed to perform. From pre-sales service to installation and prompt after - sales service our relationship with our customers evolves into an ever lasting bond.
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The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 3
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4 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Content Highlights
Federation of Corrugated Box Manufacturers of India 138, Mittal Estate No. 3, M. Vasanji Road, Andheri (East), Mumbai - 400 059.
11 - Types of Flute, Board and Box - From A to Z!
17- Light Weight Liners
21 - Role Profile
35 - Converting Corrugated Materials
E-mail: admin@fcbm.org Website: www.fcbm.org
Please address all correspondence to the Editors at: Editors
Ashok Vyas Nalanda Packaging Industries, Mumbai ashokpvyas@gmail.com
42nd FCBM Conference
The Leela Palace Chennai, India
13,14,15 December 2013
INNO
AT I N G
into the Future
Harish Madan
46 - FCBM NEWS
Securipax, New Delhi Harishmadan@gmail.com
Design & Production:
Print Links Bldg. H-4, Flat No. 2 (Lawn side) Jankalyan, Bangur Nagar, Goregaon (West), Mumbai - 400 090. Tel.: 2877 2890 email: printlinks@india.com
Printed at: Rajesh Printouch, Mumbai
65 - RFID Techniques
123 - Products Profile
81 - The Future of Manufacturing
127 - Forthcoming Events
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 5
Serving the Corrugated Packaging Industry Since Five Decades
H-350 Fingerless Single Facer
HSL-2 Hydraulic Shaftless Mill Roll Stand
Single / Double wall Corrugator
Make Sure It’s
The Symbol of Quality in Corrugated Machinery
6 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
50 YEARS IN THE SERVICE OF CORRUGATED PACKAGING INDUSTRY
HD-180 Dual Flute Single Facer
the Editors’ page
Ashok Vyas There is good news on the economic front. With the stabilization of rupee and structural changes in the competing markets, India’s exports have significantly improved. Exports have risen by 14% - the fastest in two years. Experts are upbeat about India’s chances of bouncing back from the current tough economic scenario. They opine that the recent slowdown in Indian economy is temporary and has come after years of double digit growth. They are sure that India will eventually power its way up. Leading Companies like Pepsi Co. and Coca-Cola have reposed their faith in India’s growth story and plan to make huge investments. Investment news from such consumer product companies and growth in exports will trigger demand for primary and secondary packaging. British MNCs renewed tryst with India is also a pointer in Indian growth story. Despite some depressing news about 50% of malls having low footfalls – the growth of retail sector in India appears to be on a strong foot hold with in retail culture ushering in Tier 2 & Tier 3 Cities.
Harish Madan The growth of retail sector will boost demand for corrugated packaging - which is a vital link in the complex Supply Chain Management – a key to retail operations. Well designed corrugated shipping containers enable safe movement of goods across long distances – which is important for a country like India. Besides shelf- ready and retail – ready packages, POPs are also preferably made out of corrugated. Besides this the growth in agricultural produce should boost demand for corrugated boxes – which are again increasingly by being used for packing fresh Fruits & Vegetables. The entry of Tesco – the first global retailer to enter India after FDI norms in multibrand stores were liberalized is yet another positive pointer. This has happened at a time when Tesco quit or scaled back in the three biggest economics of US, Japan and China. The latest deals show that UK companies believe in the Indian growth story. All these factors indicate consumer spending and growth for the packaging industry. Our industry should leverage these potential increase in demand and meet the needs of the market move efficiently to sustain and thrive.
The 42nd FCBM Conference at Chennai once again proved the growing fellowship among members of our Federation. The Hi- profile Technical Sessions were quite interesting and informativeThe cultural events were highly enjoyable Team SICBMA deserves our Congratulations. We are hopeful that the new President Mr. Ram Arora will continue to lead the Federation to greater heights. There have been a number of packaging Exhibitions in the last quarter, besides big events by regional associations. The India CorrExpo organized on the lines of Sino Corrugated by Reed Manch Exhibitions has been a big success in its debut appearance. This will pave way for Exhibitions dedicated to corrugated packaging – which again is a positive indicator for the growth of our industry. **************** We are happy to receive valuable comments from many readers on the style and content of our magazine. Some of these are published under the column ‘What They Say about The Corrugator’. We wish all our readers a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 7
President’s Message
Dear Readers, All good things come to an end. And my tenure as President FCBM ended on the 15th December. I recall with fondness the moments I spent with you all, during the year. It has been a tumultuous year with the economy going down and then recovering thanks to the global factors and the remedial steps taken by the Government as well as by the dynamic Governor of RBI. R. R. Ankola
Abundant monsoon and higher farm sector activity has pushed GDP to 4.8% during last quarter and has reversed the trend of the sluggish pace of economy. Foreign funds inflow and the RBI’s effort to strengthen the rupee is yet another positive trend in the economy. Expectations that the US Government will continue to support the economy by pumping money into the system and the faster opening up of Chinese economy will augur well for our nation’s economy. The regional associations have been quite active with events organized in their regions. Besides Technical Seminars for the benefit of members, some associations had organized Get togethers to enhance the fellowship and fraternity. There have been quite a few significant events in the last quarter of the year. WICMA held its Symposium at Nashik. The emphasis was on development of corrugated boxes for packaging of Fresh Fruits & Vegetables – which is a large potential market for our industry. Reed Manch Exhibitions had organized INDIA CORR EXPO at Delhi – signaling the emergence of dedicated exhibitions for corrugated packaging. The Conference at Chennai was quite successful. I congratulate SICBMA for organising the Conference and I am truly touched by their hospitality and the special personal attention they showered on me. The FCBM Directory Committee has brought out the Members’ Directory, this year. I congratulate Mr. Ashok Vyas, Chairman, FCBM Members’ Directory Committee as completing the job in time and bringing out the colourful Directory. Our industry like others will surely move on to better times. The incoming President is all set to lead the Federation with his dynamic vision and practical wisdom. I do hope the year 2014 will usher in happier times for everyone. Wishing you all a Happy New Year.
8 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Meet the FCBM President 2013-14
Message
Enthusiastic, Dynamic and Energetic Ramchand. H. Arora is in the Corrugated Packaging Industry as a second generation entrepreneur and has taken on the highest post of President of FCBM India. He is the son of the illustrious past president Late Sri. H. P. Arora. Mr. Ramchand Arora is an engineering graduate from Bangalore University. He started his career by joining his father who had setup a corrugated packaging unit in Chennai in the early 80’s under the name of Madras Paper Converters. Mr. Ramchand. H. Arora is actively associated with several industrial, trade, and social organisations. Among these are FCBM, SICBMA, Lions Club International, Sindhi Chamber Of Commerce and is Life member of The Presidency Club, Chennai. During his career, Mr. Arora has occupied prestigious positions in various social organisations including:Past President of SICBMA. Hon. Secretary, VP and Executive Committee member of Sindhi Chamber Of Commerce. Hon. Treasurer of Sindhi Federation of South India for 3 years.
Ramchand H. Arora It gives me great pleasure to address the readers of The Corrugator through this column. The year 2014 is expected to bring in great changes – a stable government a booming economy triggering a revival of the industrial output and a controlled inflation. Our industry needs to take cognizance of these impending changes and gear up to leverage these positive signs to bolster up the competence of our industry for meeting the expected demands of our customers for well designed and well performing corrugated boxes. In this scenario our Federation needs to play an ever active role. I seek your guidance, co-operation and support for infusing, new ideas and a greater vibrancy into the activities of the Federation. Let us pool our thoughts and draw a road map to make 2014 a significant year for FCBM.
Successfully handled all the posts in Lions Club International.
Technical Seminars and Interactive Fellowship Meetings will generate new thoughts and ideas.
Member and Trustee of Lions Club of Madras Temple Bay Charitable Trust.
I do hope each of our Associations will organize interesting events this year and I would urge upon members of other associations also to participate in such events.
Active Member and Trustee of Lions Blood Bank and Research foundation. He has personally donated blood more than 100 times. He has also played a key role in Lions Eye Donation propaganda.
That will further strengthen the bonds between all members.
His hobbies are reading, playing cricket and tennis.
I wish you all a Happy New Year and look forward to your enthusiastic participation in the activities of the Federation.
He is happily married to Veena and has 3 daughters.
As the conference theme exhorted let us together innovate into a brighter future.
The Corrugator is an important and effective spokesman of our Federation. Over the years, it has reached a level that can match international magazines in content and style. I am sure the new editors will scale it up to the next level.
Jai Hind.
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10 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Types of Flute, Board and Box - From A to Z! Corrugated board is produced commercially from a variety of combinations of fluting medium that is corrugated and combined with flat liners.
Single Face Board. This is a speciality of only a few plants. It is produced in reels with a re-winder either in the corrugator wet end line or as a specialist single facer group and re-winder off-line. The material is flexible in one direction, stiff in the other and it has cushioning properties, which gave rise to its early uses in stiffening top hats and protecting glass lamps and jars
or ceramics. To this day it is used as a primary protection for fragile items as well as books for postal delivery, furniture and white goods. Single face had a very healthy market for light bulb and tube packaging throughout the mid 20th century. Equipment to produce single face board has been basic and crude until the arrival of the first fully automatic continuous slitter and rewinder for single face web, which runs up to 200 metres per minute which was developed in Sweden as late as 1995. Microflute single face is used as fashionable ‘exposed flute’ packaging of cosmetics and gifts which can be printed overall or with patterns and logos.
Conventional Corrugated Boards Corrugated board is the most widely used packaging medium for boxes, divisions and fittings. It has also been used for
specialist applications such as temporary or expedition ‘housing’. It provides a stiff, resilient, recyclable container with cushioning, puncture-resistance, stackability and has a good printing surface, making it suitable for primary, point-of-sale and transit packaging as well as for display stands. It can be specified with various flute forms and paper grades to suit the application. It can be made waterproof, moisture resistant, suitable for freezing and cold storage. In most regions over 50 per cent of corrugated packaging is used for food and drinks – it also passes hygiene requirements.
Most common single wall board is B flute in the West (A flute in Japan and some other areas of the Far East). Double wall board gives a combination of protection, high stacking strength and good print surface. It was traditionally used for high value bottled drinks such as scotch whisky and gin, when boxes were stacked in the holds of ships for export. Bulk shipping and bottling at destination and the advent of sea containers led to a previously unthinkable downgrading to single wall C flute with heavy liners, partly because it was now sufficient and cheaper, but also it took up less space and increased the number of cases that fitted in a container. However,
Tony Pinnington “Longview consultants” double wall has many applications still and represents some 10-12 per cent of board produced. Triple wall board is ultra heavy-duty and used in the place of timber where similar strength is required together with a significant reduction in weight. In many applications, such as military ordnance, triple wall board is used in combination with timber. It is probably true to say that most triple wall board is shipped as sheet board to specialist converters. There is even a company in France producing quad board four ply. Triwall was a registered name for a particular patented triple wall board with three layers of A flute, giving some 14mm caliper board. It was one of very few patents to hold in the box industry and single companies in various countries were licensed to make and market Triwall. Using dual- or multi-flute single facers and the wide variety of papers available, there are literally thousands of combination possibilities in corrugated board from which to choose to suit any application. Synchro-flute is a specialist form of double wall board, also produced on a normal corrugator with special control and tensioning equipment added. It requires two identical flutes produced by two conventional single facers and the means to ensure continuous accurate positioning
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 11
of the flute tips of the bottom single face web with the valley tips of the top web. For the same materials this gives a substantial increase in flat crush and edge crush figures due to the structural strength and improved adhesion in the double facer. With water resistant adhesive, it is particularly advantageous for cold storage, where it keeps its strength even after being frozen. Amcor in Australia has developed Xitex, a synchro-flute without a centre liner. This has to be produced on a specialist single facer designed for the purpose but otherwise has the same advantages as already mentioned plus saving the paper of the centre liner.
Flute Forms The table below shows the flute forms available as well as their height, pitch and take-up ratio (the length of fluting medium required to produce a unit length of board, otherwise known as draw factor). The figures can vary with different manufacturers or for different applications or requirements, so those shown should be considered as being for guidance only. When referencing the list below, users should bear in mind that our new range of corrugated, ‘Rigid Performance Grade’ is found in a range between B flute and E flute. Flute 0 G N or G2 F E B C A K D
Height 0.30 0.55 0.50 0.75 1.16 2.50 3.66 4.45 6.00 7.50
Pitch 1.25 1.80 1.70 2.40 3.50 6.50 7.95 8.66 11.70 14.96
height and pitch. Flat crush test (FCT) is basically a measure of the ability of the board to resist forces tending to crush the flutes flat either during manufacture or in service. It is important in holding the liners apart because the compression strength or stacking strength of the box is related to the distance the liners are apart, the flutes always being vertical where stacking strength is required. Coarser flutes give higher ECT (edge crush test) figures, stacking strength and cushioning properties than finer flutes for the same papers. The finer the flute, the better the quality of the surface for printing. We have all seen the flute lines in print patterns on corrugated cases, where the impression is heavier where the liner is supported by
Take-up 1.14 1.21 1.21 1.22 1.24 1.31 1.42 1.53 1.50 1.48
Range of Flutes Available There are certain criteria in selecting a flute and a paper. The following offers some basic guidelines in flute selection, remembering that fine flutes have the smallest height and pitch, coarse flutes have greater flute
12 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
the flute tip and lighter where the liner is unsupported between tips. The effect is noticed more as the flute becomes coarser. It can be compensated to a degree by using a heavier liner, but the ultimate printing surface is solid cartonboard. The very fine flutes get closer to this ideal. Double and triple wall cases therefore normally have the finer flute (B or E) on the outside for its printing benefits and the coarser flute (A, C or coarser) on the inside for their cushioning of the contents. In addition to straight flutes, some specialist variations have been developed. One such is the ‘wave’ or ‘snake’ flute which, as its name suggests, varies from the straight line in a shallow wave form. This offers more
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14 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
board as an ‘engineering’ material. The BSFV Institut in Hamburg is carrying out some interesting work in this area in liaison with major industry players.
design flexibility for special boxes, giving some stacking strength where flutes need to run ‘horizontally’. Corrugating rolls are more costly of course. There are also special designs of form used with glacine pads used in cartons to cushion chocolates and upmarket biscuits, but these are a different application from the main subject of this book. Board and Case Performance Details of methods of testing board are covered in a later chapter (Ancillary Processes and Testing Equipment and Services), but whereas flat crush and bursting strength were the accepted major tests of board quality in the 20th century, the value of edge crush strength and bending stiffness are more to the fore today. Virgin paper producing countries in Scandinavia and North America had an interest in promoting Kraftliner and Semichem fluting papers and these materials of course gave good flat crush and burst strengths. However, with the growing use and availability of recycled papers and recognition of the environmental benefits of its proliferation, a more rational engineering approach to corrugated board and the box have emerged. Thus it is that board performance parameters better related to the requirements of the case, economy and avoidance of over-packaging are now being adopted as more realistic criteria. Hence the increasing emphasis on edge crush strength and bending stiffness, which are the important factors wherever warehousing and transport are involved. The edge crush value is quite closely related to the square of the finished board caliper for given paper grades. Thus, if a single wall B flute board of a given makeup is 3mm and the equivalent C flute board is 4mm, then the edge crush strength ratio will be 16/9 in favour of the C flute as an approximate guide. The objective of the box maker is to provide the most economical case fit for the application. Given that the cost of the paper represents more than half the selling price of the case, light-weighting is the easiest way to reduce its cost. There
International Fibreboard Case Codes This Code has been developed by FEFCO and ASSCO as an official system to substitute long and complicated verbal descriptions of fibreboard case are of course limits on how far basis weight can be reduced and it depends very much on the application. For example, light contents such as savoury snacks will not require great stacking strength. Flexible heavy goods such as bags of ground coffee will need a higher stacking strength case if they are to be piled high in the warehouse. Bottles and cans lend their own strength to the filled case in terms of its stackability, so economies can be made in edge crush. But in the case of cans in this last example, the limitations in how light you can go may well be determined by the flat crush, as the cans may need to be swept mechanically on to the base, which must be strong enough to support this action without collapsing or tearing. Double wall board is, of course stronger, but the thicker the board, the less the number of cases you can fit onto a pallet or into a container. So it becomes clear that any number of considerations have to be taken into account in selecting the material combination for the case. Performance of the case should be the basis on which it is sold and bought. The traditional attention to paper grades should be dropped, as it ignores the production ability of the supplier. Of course newer or better-maintained and operated machines make stronger board; sharper knives and scores make for stronger finished boxes, all regardless of the paper. Nonetheless, realistic basic standards are an important precursor to adopting a performancebased approach to the market. Standards have been set out for many years by FEFCO in Europe and TAPPI in the USA, but some of these are dated and there are moves under way as we write to review or replace some of these by regarding corrugated
and packaging constructions with simple symbols internationally understood by all, regardless of language and other differences. With kind permission from FEFCO the specifications of each code are reproduced in the Appendix of this book. Extract from ‘Corrugated Industry - in Pursuit of Excellence’ by Tony Pinnington which was published by Brunton Business Publications Ltd. It is reprinted in The Corrugator with the permission of the author. Mr. Tony Pinnington of ‘Longview consultants’ is a Corrugated Industry Consultant based in UK. He is a source of abundant information and he has been contributing since a long time to various industry magazines including “The corrugator” and to the success of this magazine‘s editorial matter. e-mail: tony.pinnington@ btopenworld.com.
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16 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Light Weight Liners During the last year, I have presented a number of articles on machine calibration techniques for our Flexos and Rotary Die Cutters. Discussions were focused around reducing the set up times as a tool to stay competitive and keep up with the ever-changing characteristics of the corrugated market. Customer’s orders are becoming shorter and shorter in addition to the fact that they are asking for more colors and increasingly more complex designs in their boxes and displays. The paper and board combinations are also changing rapidly and we must try to stay ahead of the curve. I also discussed the importance of tooling in both printing plates and cutting dies. The care and maintenance of these important and costly manufacturing tools continue to be critical in both managing costs and improving the process at the same time. While we know that we have to focus on managing costs, we also have to remember to work hard on sustaining board caliper during the converting processes. Customers are purchasing ECT performance characteristics and the market can be quite demanding and specific. We can loose no more than 0.003”(0.08 mm) in the non-printed area of the sheet and an additional 0.002” (0.05 mm) in the printed area, depending on the number of colors that are required for the order. We also have to stay focused on product dimensions. Specifically, I mean minimum variation in both the manufacturing gap measurement and skew. Just to be specific, “Manufacturing Gap” is the measurement between the edge of the first and fourth panels in an RSC manufactured on a Flexo Folder Gluer. This number should equal the same measurement of the manufactured slots produced in the slotter section. Normally they are 0.375”(10 mm). In the manufacture’s gap, we are allowed a tolerance, as the point of fold is not always consistent in either the first or fourth panel. So, that number can be 0.375”(10 mm) +/- 0.0.94” (2.4 mm). This will offer our customers with automatic case erectors a box that will work in their plants with minimum or no interruptions.
“Skew” is the variation between the lead and trail dimensions in the manufacturer’s gap. This number, as we know, is quite different. We control this characteristic in both the feed section and the method by which we transport the sheet (Pull Collars or vacuum transfer). Also, be careful to maintain a proper height of sheets in the feed section hopper in order to assure proper sheet introduction to the first print section. Check the stroke of your lead edge feeder, again, to assure proper introduction of the sheet to the first print section. These characteristics actually determines how the box folds and if the box sets up properly closing all four corners. Again, this variation between the lead and trail gap has a tolerance of no more than 0.094”(2.4 mm) “TOTAL”. This means it is a linear number and not a plus or minus dimension. In recent years, however, this number has improved a great deal do the use of vacuum transfer presses and the attention paid to the pull collars in non-vacuum transfer machines. Our box plants do understand the importance of this characteristic and we have responded appropriately. Using a proper “Front Stop Gauge” will assure the perpendicular transfer of the sheet through the press starting with the correct settings of the
Dick Target “On Target Consultants”
two front stops in the feed section. The height of these two front stops in the feed table should be set at 1.5 times the caliper of the sheet. This will allow “normal” warp to be fed through the press without one of the front stops dragging on one side of the sheet. When this drag happens, the sheet leaves the feed section skewed and is delivered to the print stations, slotter section and the die cut section skewed. As we know, this creates the “snow plow” effect and renders the box a poor performer. In the event that the crews have difficulty determining a uniform setting of the two “Front Stops”, you can also use a simple front stop gauge as shown in the picture. This can be made out of 16 gauge sheet metal which is 0.060”(1.5 mm) thick. Fine flutes (“E” and “F” Flutes) need a lighter gauge sheet metal (22 gauge which is 0.029”[0.7 mm]. Place the gauge on top of the sheet, turn on the vacuum on the feed table and bring the front stop down to the gauge. This will allow adequate clearance for the sheet to pass one at a time. As we continue to management our assets under discussion, namely our converting machines, we must now focus on the fact that the market is rapidly changing regarding raw materials. Specifically,
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18 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013 Phone Mobile Web E-Mail
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I mean the paper! The fiber content is getting less and less and the caliper of the sheet itself is also changing. As the physical properties of the sheet change, so are the Sheffield numbers on the surface of the sheet. This should be causing us to rethink how we run our plants and how we convert our sheets while still maintaining our quality standards and satisfying our customer’s requirements. NOTE: The main reason that has driven lighter weight corrugated is the fact that there are many countries in the world that require a TAX on waste. So, therefore it becomes a service for our customers and their customers to offer a shipping container that weighs less yet still satisfies their shipping requirements. On the corrugator side, the starch formulas should be reviewed both at the single facer and the outside liner at the glue machine. As the medium is so light today, we should also start reviewing the quality of steam and its moisture content that is applied to medium prior to entering the corrugator roll nips. In North America, I know the medium is now 22 pounds or 112-gram paper and in the European market it is as low as 16 pounds or 80-gram paper. If wash boarding were a problem in your plant in the past, the manufacturing environment is even becoming more of a challenge today. The solids content of your starch must be revisited and updated. I suggest good technical meetings with both your starch suppliers and your manufacturing crews (single facer operators) on the wet end of your corrugator. Depending upon what your customer is looking for in printing, you might be faced with the challenge of bonding extremely lightweight medium with semi virgin or virgin liners. This also offers a challenge of bonding un-balanced liners not only in fiber content but also in weight characteristics. In past articles, I have commented on the fact that we as a group, tend to be the worlds best suppliers, as we will do almost anything in order to satisfy our customer’s requirements. This is a perfect example. As difficult as it is, we will perform and still offer a suitable shipping container with less fiber.
We have always dealt with “Washboarding” and I do feel that this will be an increasingly difficult challenge for us as converters. As stated above, we must strive to review and update the solids content of our starch and also strive to aggressively reduce the amount of starch and “moisture” we apply at the Glue Machine. We should also try to balance the starch application at the single facer and the glue machine. There are several new designs out in the market today that focuses on specifically applying starch to the flute tips in the single face web while not flooding the flank and valleys of the single face web. These ideas should be investigated. We should also look at the quality of the steam that we produce for the corrugator to be sure that the “latent heat” characteristics are at peak performances. We need the maximum amount of energy to be released at the critical time when the steam condenses so that we can fine-tune our settings and produce uniform heat resulting in a consistent caliper sheet. Now that we have produced a proper caliper sheet, we need to upgrade and review the scoring that occurs at the slitter. In recent trips to the Middle East, Mexico and various plants around North America, I have recently seen that the depth of the scoring offers problems and also opportunities that should be discussed and possibly updated. Scoring on both the Flexos and in the die boards in Rotary Die Cutters are now changing and must be reviewed. The Urethane rings in our Flexos need to be more precise (TIR numbers cannot exceed 0.002” [0.05 mm]). The anvil covers in our Rotary Die Cutters need to be changed every week depending on the number of shifts the plant operates. Rubbering on the Die Boards
need to be upgraded and understood by both crews and plant management. A proper score bend tester should be used in order to review and accurately define the force required to break the fold on the now newly produced sheet. Certainly, the customer’s requirements have not changed while the basic design of the corrugated has changed in its fiber content. Time must be taken to completely understand and review our customer’s requirements in every box that we make for them. What a great opportunity! This is an opportunity to be pro-active and fully partner with your customer. Technically solve potential problems in a new technical positively changing market. I would suggest that with the right customer share caliper statistics, folding parameters, color consistency and dimensional stability reports. I have always believed that if you do not take complete care of your good customers, someone else will. Be aggressive, pay attention to details and enjoy your job!!
Dick Target, owner of “On Target Consultants” in Lower Gwynedd, Pa., has been in the corrugated industry for 35 years. He has worked in 29 countries developing and guiding corrugated plants in lean manufacturing, vendor development and management training. He teaches Converting Short Courses for TAPPI and is an active member of TAPPI’s TCC (TAPPI Consulting Council). He can be reached at: dicktarget©gmail.com This article was first published by “Corrugated Today” November/December 2012 and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.
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20 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Roll Profiles
Roll Profiles Profile geometry and profile types
Hank Chang Li Shenq Machinery Co. Ltd., Taiwan
Standard profiles are mathematically defined at four points: -
Profile pitch Profile height Tooth tip radius Tooth base radius
The currently most important flute dimensions and their typical geometrical parameters are summarised and described below. Corresponding corrugated tooth forms exist as counterparts to the fluting geometries. Historically, only three forms have essentially become established. The circular corrugation form consists of successive half-circle segments (cylindrical segments). This circular corrugation form was easy to calculate and used successfully in the clothing industry (pleating machines).
This was later followed by the so-called V-form, where the flute crests and valleys consisted of circular segments, partly less than 180 degrees that were connected to straight flanks. This corrugating tooth form enabled a material saving (take-up factor) of 4-5% compared to the circular corrugating form. However, the V-Form gives rise to high bending stresses due to the very small tooth tip and tooth base radii which, in the case of brittle, short-fibre papers, can cause the flutes to burst open at the tips.
Circular corrugation form/Intermediate form (Peters)/V-form
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 21
22 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Standard profile As a compromise between the circular and V-form, an intermediate form was developed allowing material savings of about 2% compared to the circular corrugating form. Also of importance is the influence of the corrugating form on the maximum machine speed: Flat flutes can be produced more quickly than steep flutes. Based on this knowledge, a number of special forms and individually adapted corrugating tooth forms evolved. If a larger flank clearance is required for thicker fluting papers, for example, then required is a third radius R3 in the flanks.
Theoretical height/Measured height/Tooth base radius/ Tooth tip radius/Roll diameter/Pitch
This flexible production offered numerous possibilities for tooth geometry optimisation.
Profile with third radius
The ROCKWELLE® coating provided a further possibility for profile optimisation. This coating is subject to unnoticeable wear and allows a reduction of the fluting height in the order of normal profile wear. Uncoated rolls: 0.2 - 0.3 mm. Chrome plated rolls: 0.05/0.1 – 0.15 mm, depending on chrome plating. The resulting paper savings ( 60,000/year at 30 million running metres production) already pay the roll costs.
Profile with third radius - With a third radius, the distance between the flanks increases by 0.1mm. - Modern grinding machines for the manufacture of corrugating rolls are computer-controlled and enable the production of all required profiles according to customers’ specification.
The high wear resistance of the ROCKELLE® coating also allows the use of a smaller tooth tip radius and in turn a smaller take-up factor, combined with the reduction of glue consumption. Smaller radii produce flutes with higher accuracy and increase the strength of the corrugated board structure.
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 23
24 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Flank clearance ROCKWELLE® coatings can also be used for very fine flutes (E/F profiles). Use of the ROCKWELLE® coating depends however on the maximum working width, roll diameter and required profiles and machine type
- The teeth of the corrugating roll profile geometrically make contact only on the tooth tip and in the valley.
The suitability of the ROCKWELLE® coating for these very fine flutes must be determined based on the specific conditions prevailing at the customer and adapted accordingly.
- Standard gears function in reverse. Their flanks make contact during rotation with clearance between the tooth tip and tooth base.
- The flanks do not make contact; the clearance (flank clearance) must be such that the fluting paper is able to move freely between the flanks.
- The flank clearance is obtained by a larger tooth base radius and a smaller tooth tip radius.
ROCKWELLE® coatings can also be used for very fine flutes (E/F profiles). Use of the ROCKWELLE® coating depends however on the maximum working width, roll diameter and required profiles and machine type
Example: Standard B-flute: - Fluting height - Pitch
The suitability of the ROCKWELLE® coating for these very fine flutes must be determined based on the specific conditions prevailing at the customer and adapted accordingly.
2.50 mm
6.45 m
- Tooth tip radius
1.30 mm
- Tooth base radius
1.60 mm
- Radii difference
0.30 mm
Savings with ROCKWELLE /ROCKPROFILE Fluting paper input ROCKPROFILE ROCKPROFILE BCT
The greater the radii difference, the larger the flank clearance. The radii differences vary between 0.2 and 0.4 mm.
Conventional profile
ROCKPROFILE
A-flute
4,45 / 8,66 mm EZF 1.53
4,40 / 9,06 mm EZF 1.45
- 5.8 %
+ 10 %
Selection of the flank clearance depends on the paper thickness and type of cylinder mill.
C-flute
3,66 / 7,95 mm EZF 1.42
3,40 / 7,82 mm EZF 1.37
- 3.5 %
+7%
Paper with a weight of 100g/m² is about 0.1 mm thick.
B-flute
2,50 / 6,50 mm EZF 1.31
2,36 / 6,10 mm EZF 1.31
E-flute
1,16 / 3,50 mm EZF 1.24
1,10 / 3,61 mm EZF 1.20
+0 - 3.2 %
+6%
Paper with a weight of 200g/m² is about 0.2 mm thick, etc
+2%
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 25
26 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Take-up factor The flank clearance must be greater than the paper thickness. The same B-flute profile (identical height and pitch) must therefore have a greater radii difference when paper with a weight of 200 g/m² and more is used. The flank clearance also reduces when the tooth tips are subject to wear. Wearing of the tip enlarges the tooth tip radius. This in turn reduces the radii difference. Roll surfaces subject to greater wear therefore require larger radii differences in order to have sufficient flank clearance. It often occurs that roll have to be changed owing insufficient flank clearance due to excessive fluting head wear.
The take-up factor as a function of pitch, fluting height and tooth tip radius determines the additional fluting paper consumption with respect to the liner. If the fluting paper for a section of board measuring one metre board is 1m when stretched, the take-up factor is 1. For a B-profile with a fluting height of 2.35 mm and a pitch of 6.45 mm, the relation is as follows: Obliquely stretched flute 1.20; standard B-flute 1.35; rightangled flute 1.48. As paper costs (in total) account for virtually 50% and fluting paper for 17% of corrugated board manufacturing costs, the minimisation of take-up factors is a significant saving potential. A reduction of 1.35 to 1.30 reduces paper costs by 0.6%. The associated saving per year can amount to about € 100,000.
Savings with ROCKWELLE/ROCKPROFILE Conventional A-flute
Change in flank clearance Profile 2.50 x 6.45 Tooth tip radius R=1.25 constant In order to obtain special profiles and to enlarge the flank clearance, flanks can also be relief-ground (e.g. bone profile, 3-radii profile).
Pitch Height Take-up factor
ROCKPROFILE C-flute
9.10 mm 4.71 mm 1.539
7.63 mm 3.36 mm 1.379
BCT
100
101.3
Fluting paper consumption
100
89.7
FLANK CLEARANCE Standard profile
3-radii profile
Bone profile
The radii difference and associated flank clearance influence the precision of flute formation and the corrugated board strength.
Take-up factors can be reduced mainly by low fluting heights. Owing to the wear resistance of the ROCKWELLE® coating, fluting heights can be reduced by the conventional degree of wear. Numerous corrugated board manufacturers in Germany have been able to reduce their B and C–profiles for ROCKWELLE® coatings by 0.15 to 0.20 mm in recent years. A further option for the reduction of the take-up factor is offered by the reduction of the fluting tooth tip and tooth base radii. Tooth tip radii of 1.00 mm for a B-flute are no longer unusual today. Reworking corrugating rolls normally increase the take-up factor. By regrinding, the roll diameter is reduced, which increases the number of flutes per metre corrugated board. This increase (about 0.3%) is however, fairly small compared to the initially described change potential. The ROCKWELLE® coating is wear-resistant and the original roll diameter can be virtually maintained.
Cont. on Page 31 The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 27
28 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 29
30 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Cont. from Page 27
Fluting head wear
TAKE UP RATIO
The fluting head wear is the main reason for a roll change in the case of uncoated rolls. Wear is caused by the paper that slides over the fluting heads into the labyrinth at a speed that is 30 to 40% higher than the machine speed. The paper under tension exerts pressure on the tooth tips. Influencing factors are mainly: - Sand contained in the paper that acts as an abrasive medium - Frictional resistance of the roll surface - Speed By means of modern cleaning centrifuges in paper mills, sand particles in waste paper have been able to be reduced from 2 – 4% to 0.1 – 0.2%. The majority of European paper mills are equipped with such facilities. Paper of pure fibres such as semi-chemical pulp normally have a very small sand content. Fluting paper made from waste paper can contain 10 to 15% non-flammable materials in powder form such as barium or calcium. This powder has hardly any influence on wear. Soiled paper with grainy sand particles can damage the teeth within a few hours of production.
Rolls tailored to suit individual customer requirements K&H
FRIESE ROCKPROFILE
Wormstandard out
I
II
III
Corrugating roll diameter in mm
408
407,6
408
408
408
Fluting height
in mm
4,6
4,4
4,4
4,4
4,4
Pitch
in mm
8,602
8,594
9,220
9,090
8,960
149
149
139
141
143
in %
100,0
146,4
51,9
55,4
59,0
12,57
18,4
6,53
6,96
7,42
1,562
1536
1,433
1,444
1,457
0
1,7
8,3
7,6
6,7
Number of teeth Tension Factor Tension Take-up factor Fluting paper saving
in %
Mechanical strength
The abrasion rates of toothed surfaces and the roll life expectancy for B-flutes vary as follows: Abrasion rate (%)
Life expectancy
Nitrided or induction hardened rolls
(%)
100
10-30 million running metres
Chrome plated rolls:
50
20-60 million running metres
5-10
50 over 100 million running metres
Tungsten carbide coated rolls:
Within a rolls operating time of 1-5 years, tooth wear is as follows: Nitrided or induction hardened rolls:
BCT-value
in %
100
90,2
98,9
97,6
100,7
Chrome plated rolls:
FCT-value
in %
100
92,4
106,3
107,1
107,8
Carbide coated rolls:
0.2 - 0.4 mm 0.1 – 0.15 mm 0.03 – 0.04 mm
WEAR ON FLUTE TIPS
Example of profile optimisation: Starting point customer profile Comparison with worn profile is calculated (strength lower limit) 3 FRIESE profiles are developed according to customer conditions and important parameters (take-up factor, edge crush resistance ECT and BCT values) calculated Customer selects his specific profile
Cont. on Page 34 The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 31
32 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 33
Cont. from Page 31
Roll surfaces are subject to wear in various areas. - 2 edge area, not covered with paper - width: 5-20mm – no wear. - 2 boundary areas, sometimes covered with paper – width: 100-400mm - variable wear. - 2 centre areas, always covered with paper – width: 10002000mm – max. wear. Corrugated board mills are being forced more and more to produce diverse formats in a single facer; paper width fluctuations from 50 to 100% of the maximum working width occur to an increasing extent. This unavoidably results in high stressing of those roll areas subject to preferably narrower webs.
In these areas, the roll diameter reduces more quickly due to abrasion than in other areas. This results in webs with machine width not being able to be perfectly processed after some time. In the flute forming process, only a height deviations of up to 0.05 mm is absorbed by the paper. Corrugating rolls must therefore be reground regularly in edge and boundary areas throughout their entire life. (Nitrided/induction hardened rolls 4-8 times, chrome plated rolls 2-3 times). ROCKWELLE® coatings do not need to be reground, as their abrasion is within the flute forming and paper tolerance zone. In addition, the ROCKWELLE® coating has been modified in such a way that web widths between 50% and 100% of the working width can be used without damage to the coating.
ROLL WEAR no sometimes always sometimes no paper paper paper paper paper
The main causes of roll damage are: - Hard objects such as screws, bolts or tools that damage or partially fracture a number of teeth. - Excessive edge overhands and resultant tooth fractures in the edge area. Damage of this type occurs relatively seldom. - Excessive corrugating roll pressures. Damage is caused more frequently to edges in the boundary areas. As a result of the higher wear in the centre area of the rolls, the pressure is increased on the roll ends and pressures can build up for various reasons, which are above the strength of the steel and can cause considerable damage (excessive edge overhang, soiling). Under the influence of this pressure increase, e.g. the chrome coating can crack.
This is a reproduction of a presentation made during the technical sessions organised at the 42nd FCBM Conference - 2013 at Chennai, hosted by SICBMA
A fit - for Purpose Packaging A fit for purpose packaging system balances the functions and technical performance requirements of each level of level of packaging (Primary, secondary and tertiary), along with other performance criteria and procurement costs. This requires dialogue with suppliers and customers to ensure that functionality and efficiencies are maintained across the supply chain. Packaging actually plays a critical role in protecting fresh produce and processed food in transit, in storage, at point of sale and prior to consumption. In doing so it helps deliver a wide range of function wile reducing food waste.
34 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Converting Corrugated Materials Ever since the advent of corrugated paper, converting it has created certain difficulties. In order to intelligently discuss approaches to dealing with these difficulties, we must obviously first define and examine those difficulties. In this article, we will primarily address the rotary conversion of corrugated, but many of the elements discussed here should have some crossover value to flat conversion also.
Challenges of Corrugated There are many obvious and some not so obvious reasons for the inherent problems associated with converting corrugated. Those reasons include: The constant and extreme changing character of corrugated based on its moisture content and temperature. Dry’ cool corrugated is a totally different animal than wet, warm corrugated and each will ill act very differently in the converting process
Air--the very element that helps to create the unique properties of corrugated--also creates major problems in conversion. Cutting, perforating, or creasing a material that significantly consists of trapped air, automatically creates several difficulties, one of the most obvious being corrugated’s propensity for crushing, which of course is due to necessity of material compression prior to cutting. Another problem related to the air in corrugated is how the air reacts differently to converting attempts based on whether cutting is being attempted with the flutes or against the flutes. Obviously. cutting against the flutes presents a more supported, easier to cut material. Corrugated should not be cut in such a way that the resultant product edges are so sharp that they might produce paper cuts. This calls for a slight breaking of the product edges, which can be accomplished in a couple of ways we’ll examine later. Rotary diecutting has historically been less accurate than flat diecutting. One of the primary reasons for this is that most rotary cutting is done by cutting into a blanket. The distance of penetration into the blanket changes the size of the blank being cut. That distance can be affected by the condition of the blanket, the press operator and the amount and type of rule being employed. We will discuss how the right kinds of rule can potentially increase the life of the blanket and the accuracy of the diecutting further on in the presentation. Clint Medlock recently
Gregory Zimmer, Zimmer Industries Inc., Hawthorne, NJ, USA
had a very interesting article in The Cutting Edge that deals with the problem of achieving maximum accuracy from rotary dies. I recommend you read it if you haven’t already done so. It contains some very helpful and insightful information. Clint and I both seem to share the opinion that rotary dies can be made to achieve significantly greater accuracy than is now commonly being produced. Weights and thickness of corrugated vary greatly, often requiring different approaches to conversion and presenting different problems to be dealt with. Operator efficiency also plays a very large part in corrugated diecutting. Proper training and motivation of the operator is extremely important. Stripping of the scrap is absolutely critical to effective conversion of corrugated. Many variables affect this aspect of diecutting. There is a vast selection of rotary serrated rules available today, both foreign and domestic. Choosing the right ones for a specific application can be very confusing and difficult. It has been proven that curved rules in rotary diecutting should be somewhere between .020” - .030” lower than the straight rules because they cut with much greater ease than the straight rules, due to the lesser number of teeth penetrating, at any one time
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 35
36 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Effective nicking of corrugated has often proved to be problematic. There are new rule products which may aid in that area Finally, there is the issue of the increased speeds of rotary diecutting and the methods of optimizing and maintaining the achievable speeds.
Characteristics of Rules Now let’s go over some general characteristics of most rotary rules. As many of you know, there are three primary manufacturers of rotary rule in the U.S. National, Simonds, and Zimmer. All three companies buy their cubic steel from the same sources and the steel they buy is virtually identical. The usual choices of tooth patterns and bevels for rotary cutting rules include 8, 10, 12, and 20 teeth per inch, with occasional requests for 3, 4, 4.6, 5, 6, 13 and 16, though many of these are often used for non-corrugated applications.
The bevels usually employed include: centerface, sideface and off center, centerface. In general the more teeth per inch, the more cutting pressure is required. Also in general, the more teeth per inch, the lower or shallower the gullets or valleys of the rule are. This fact may require less penetration in order to achieve the cut and in certain cases, may increase blanket life. As a rule, the more teeth per inch, the better the edge appearance and feel usually are. All three manufacturers supply 4 point as the standard, but 2, 3, 6 & 8 point are also available for certain applications.
In flat diecutting of corrugated, a wave rule is sometimes used to break the sharp edges of the diecut product. This achieves a similar effect as the teeth do from the serrated rules used in rotary diecutting. With any manufacturer’s rule, the proper use of rubber is absolutely critical. Any of the major rubber suppliers will be happy to assist you in this arena, but let it be emphasized that if everything else about the die, the operator and the equipment is the absolute best, if the rubbering is wrong, you will not be successful--period.
Problems & Answers Now let’s see if we can put together the inherent problems of rotary corrugated diecutting with the general characteristics of rotary rules and find out if we can get some answers as to how to tackle some of those problems rotary diemakers and diecutters face every day.
Moisture We spoke of the moisture content and temperature of corrugated being potentially problematic. As the diemaker, there isn’t too much you can do to affect the moisture or temperature, other than possibly to caution and or advise the diecutter if you see evidence of this problem. However, if a particular plant very often runs wet board at higher than normal temperatures, there are ways to address the problems these conditions often present. Reduced cutting pressure would help in these circumstances because hot, wet board tends to almost tear when significant cutting pressure is needed. As we discussed previously, the fewer teeth per inch, the lower the cutting pressure needed. Therefore, in a plant such as the one described above, a tooth pattern such as 10 or 8 would probably be preferable to a 12 tooth, everything else being equal. Some of the newer, more exotic tooth patterns such as Arrowhead, Ultra 10 and Supercut might also be good solutions here. Remember though that everything else being equal, coarser tooth patterns often require deeper penetration
and the attendant possibility of decreased blanket life.
Air Air was also mentioned as a potential problem. In general, coarser tooth patterns can also help in this area. Again, coarser teeth with reduced cutting pressure can help decrease the amount of crush that may occur. In the curved direction, cutting with the flutes, it is often important to have a sharp tooth one that sets or holds the material in place as it is being cut. A tooth that is not truly sharp may have a tendency to tear rather than cut, especially in the flute direction, cutting into air.
Ideas Regarding the edges of diecut products, and making sure those edges don’t promote paper-cuts, serrated rules and or wave rules could attend to that requirement. The fineness of the tooth patterns is directly related to how fine an edge will be produced on the product. For an obvious example in rotary serrated rules, a 12-tooth pattern will provide a less rough or coarse product edge than an 8-tooth rule. An even finer edge then could be achieved by a 20-tooth pattern. Remember though that the 20-tooth pattern would take more cutting pressure than the 12 or the 8.
Accuracy As to the possibility of maximizing the dimensional tolerances or accuracy of rotary diecutting, there are several influencing factors: The condition of the blanket--the more level and less eaten up--the better. The skills and attention of the operator. A poor operator can pretty much wreck any chance of dimensional accuracy. Too much pressure, too little pressure, damaged dies. poor machine maintenance can all contribute to inaccuracy Of course, the dimensional accuracy of the die and the rules used in the die are extremely important For example, height tolerance of the rule or inconsistencies of
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 37
38 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
tooth depths or tooth forms can adversely affect accuracy. If everything is as it should be, penetration into the blanket can be kept to a minimum. This simple step can help blanket life, improve the product’s dimensional accuracy and even enhance machine performance. Again I would recommend you to Clint’s articles for further discussion of improving accuracy. In addition to what’s been discussed here, there have been several improvements relative to blanket performance by companies such as Dicar who make the Equalizer, which helps to compensate for some of the inaccuracies normally associated with rotary diecutting. These kinds of improvements may often make it possible to use rotary diecutting, for accuracy that previously was achievable only with flat diecutting.
Varied Weights & Thicknesses The various weights and thickness of corrugated create differing requirements of the rules employed Again, it is often a balancing act of trying to achieve a nice edge, minimal cutting pressure and a reasonable amount of penetration. In general, the heavier weight, thicker boards call for the coarser tooth patterns. There are a couple of rules that claim more of a “Universal” usage than conventional rules, and you may want to look into those also.
Stripping Stripping, as mentioned, is absolutely critical to effective rotary diecutting and here is an area where the different bevels or cutting edges that are available may come into play. For many years it was thought that a sideface bevel created the perfect conditions for effective stripping. This type bevel tends to crush one side of the blank and leaves the other side basically uncrushed, providing an ease of stripping or scrap removal because the scrap is in a sense--directed. There are diemakers who still believe that sideface bevel is the best for rotary diecutting. The industry in general, though seems
to be moving more toward off-center center bevels and true center bevels. The standard centerface bevels actually create a product edge that is basically identical on both sides of the cut and both these sides are better in appearance and crush than the “bad’’ side of the sideface cuts. Neither side, though, is as good as the “good” side of the sideface cut. It is a compromise of sorts and provides a good solution for common cuts and the assurance that the rule cannot inadvertently be put in the die backward by the diemaker or the diecutter who may replace worn out rule. The off-center, center bevel is a bit of a hybrid, giving some of the benefits of a sideface bevel and some of the benefits of a standard centerface. Being off center, there is a possibility of putting the rule in backward. Returning to the issue of crush again; it is very important that the rule used minimizes crush to provide optimum stripping.
Nicking A new product has recently come to the marketplace It is used to provide nicking of corrugated. It is a pre-nicked cutting rule primarily for light corrugated stock and may be used in flat or rotary applications. This is a very promising concept. Simply explained, it takes the obvious idea that many small nicks can provide the same or greater strength than a few large nicks. By making the nicks smaller, they become less offensive both to the eye and to the touch but because there are so many of them, you do not sacrifice the overall strength of the nicked areas and the risk of the material being inadvertently broken apart during processing. This product presents some interesting possibilities and might warrant your further investigation.
What to Look For Here are some things to look for in any high quality rotary rule: a. Consistency of the following: rule height, degree of bevel, notch placement - at 1/2” centers, tooth form, bend ability, curved I.D.s and burr-free teeth
b. Ability to stand up to the mallet c. Clean, rust free product d. Safe packaging and ease of dispensing e. A fair price f. From stock deliveries on standard items. g. Reasonable turnarounds on special made items.
The three American rule manufacturers previously mentioned, Simonds, National and Zimmer enjoy international reputations as rotary rule suppliers and I’m sure that any of the three would be more than happy to assist you in the proper selection of the right rotary rule for you and your customers. This article is reprinted with permission from the International Association of Diecutting and Diemaking’s monthly magazine, The Cutting Edge. The IADD is an international trade association serving diecutters, diemakers and industry suppliers worldwide. IADD provides conferences, educational and training programs, a monthly magazine, online resource library of 450+ technical articles, industry experts to answer technical questions, publications and training manuals, recommended specifications, online used equipment marketplace, videos and more. IADD also co-presents Odyssey, a bi-annual trade show and innovative concept in technical training featuring a hands-on Techshop where training programs come alive in an actual working diemaking and diecutting facility inside the exhibit area. Visit www.iadd.org or call 1-815-4557519 for more information.
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 39
COLD GUM MIXING MACHINE The Advance Starch Glue Preparing Technology
58, G.I.D.C., V. U Nagar, Anand, Gujarat, INDIA. Pin. 388 121 Phone Mobile Web E-Mail
: +912692236357, +912692239495. : +919824018853 : www.npmachinery.in : info@npmachinery.in, prakash@npmachinery.in, npmegum@yahoo.co.in
40 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Integrated Automatic Corrugation Gum Circulating System The Advance Starch Glue Preparing Technology
58, G.I.D.C., V. U Nagar, Anand, Gujarat, INDIA. Pin. 388 121 Phone Mobile Web E-Mail
: +912692236357, +912692239495. : +919824018853 : www.npmachinery.in : info@npmachinery.in, prakash@npmachinery.in, npmegum@yahoo.co.in
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 41
Developments in Starch Adhesives
The Objective of this presentation is to discuss new developments in Starch Adhesives and its potential to meet challenges of making Corrugated Box in Manual Plant.
B.V. Bhaskar Reddy Director of Stardex Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad.
42 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
B. V. Bhaskar Reddy is a Post Graduate in Economics, Business Management from Bhavans, ICWAI (Int.) He has served in Air Force for 20 years. and worked as Business Manager for Starch Adhesive division in Pioneer Adhesives, Mumbai. Formed  Stardex in 2003 to produce starch adhesives. Currently provides adhesives across the country from Hyderabad and Salem plants and exports to Europe, Middle East and other SARC countries. He is presently the Director of Stardex Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad. This is a reproduction of a presentation made during one of the technical sessions organised at the 42nd FCBM Conference - 2013 at Chennai, hosted by SICBMA
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 43
The Widest Range of Conforming to National Vibration Tester Can assess performance of a filled package when subjected to vibration during transit.
Saurashtra – a trusted name in Testing Equipments Pioneers in the development of testing equipments, Saurashtra has etched for itself a premier position in the field of testing of packaging materials and packages.
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Since over 25 years, Saurashtra continues to enjoy the trust and confidence of manufacturers and users of packagings as well as leading institutes and laboratories. Today there are over 7000 satisfied customers in India and abroad using equipments of Saurashtra.
Tear Resistance Tester Measures the Tear Force required to tear samples of paper, board, plastic films and other similar materials.
Crush Tester
With a wide range of equipments for scientific and accurate testing of paper, paperboard, corrugated boards & boxes, Saurashtra stands out as a single window for testing equipments - ably supported by technical backup and prompt service. Now, Saurashtra also offers equipments for testing plastics and other packaging materials as well as engineering and automobile industry.
Tensile Tester Measures the Tensile Strength of paper, paperboard, etc. Capacity 200 kgs.
Useful for determining Edge Crush, Flat Crush, Pin (Ply) Adhesion of Corrugated Board and Ring Crush and CMT of Paper and Paperboard.
Also available Tensile cum CrushTester
Materials & Packaging: Paper, Plastics, Textile, Metal, Wood Microprocessor-based & Computerised Touch Screen Controlled Single and Dual Pillar Models available with various load capacities, different admit between jaws and columns and variable testing speeds. Tests: Tensile, Flexural, Compression, Torque, Co-efficient of Friction, Peel Strength, Seal Strength, Bending, Stiffness, Folding Endurance, Bond Strength Drop Tester
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Puncture Resistance Tester Gives reliable indication to evaluate fabrication factors along with material values in a composite fashion. Also available Mechanical Model
Caliper Thickness Gauge Measures Caliper thickness of variety of materials.
Determines transportworthiness of packages. Facilitates dropping of packages from different angles. Also available Manual Model
Substance Indicator Measures directly substance of paper, paperboard and other materials in terms of G.S.M.
44 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
COBB Tester Determines water absorption/ penetration (cobb value) of paper and paperboard as specified in standards.
Testing Equipments, and International Standards Bursting Strength Testers Two-in-One Digital Economy Model Paper & Board Tester l Two Diaphragm Seats l Digital Indication of readings l Peak Hold facility l Manual Clamping
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Other Equipments available Also available • Regular Model with Single Gauge (Paper or Board Tester) • Regular Model with Two Gauges (Board Tester) • Deluxe Model with Single Gauge (Board Tester) • Fully Automatic Model (Paper or Board Tester) • Two-in-One Dual Pressure Gauge Model (Paper & Board Tester) • Two-in-One Fully Automatic Micro Processor-based Digital Model (Paper & Board Tester)
l
Specimen Cutter for GSM, Ring Crush & Edge Crush Tests l Specimen Maker (Fluter) for Concora Medium Test l Dart Impact Tester l Torque Tester l Air Permeability Tester
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The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 45
FCBM News
41st AGM of GCBMA 41st AGM of Gujarat Corrugated Box Manufacturers’ Association was held on September 28, 2013 at Hotel Mirasol Lake Resort, Daman. The Conference along with AGM was organised during September 27-29, 2013 at Mirasol Lake Resort, Daman. Over 270 participants including 60 sponsors attended the Conference. It was a 3 days/2 nights programme . The conference had a Technical Session by Mr. Sunil Shah, Director, Aryan Paper Mill, Vapi.
All participants enjoyed the weekend consisting cultural activities at night, meeting with co members and sponsors and playing friendly cricket match at the venue. Mr. Prahlad Patel was elected as the President of GCBMA for 2013-14 & 2014 – 15. The office bearers are as follows. Mr. Prahlad Patel, President Mr. Sunil Purswani, Vice President Mr. Aanurag Shah, Hon Secretary Mr. Amrut Patel, Hon Jt. Secretary Mr. Satish Patel, Hon Treasurer
New Office Bearers for the year 2013-14 at the dais.
Mr. Prahlad Patel addressing the gathering 46 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Mr. Ashwin Shah, Past President FCBM will be the Chairman of the 43rd FCBM Conference scheduled to be held during December, 2014 - hosted by GCBMA.
Memento Presentation
Members at the 41st AGM.
Technical Seminar 3rd Technical Seminar during the year was organised on “Costing & Cost Reduction of Corrugated Boxes” on August 17, 2013 at Morbi. The seminr got overwhelming response, over 350 participants attended the seminar where majority of the participants have first time joined GCBMA through the Seminar. GCBMA launched its much awaited website www.gcbma.in Following was the Technical Sessions programme. Session - I Practical Suggestion to reduce Cost Speaker - Mr. Pankaj Shah Session II Right Parameters for Adhesives Speaker - Mr. Sandeep Agrawal Session III – Costing Speaker - Mr. Mitul Shah
FCBM MEMBERS’ DIRECTORY 2013 LAUNCHED AT 42ND FCBM CONFERENCE
Fed e Box ration of MANU FAC Corru TURER ga S of ted India
The new FCBM Members Directory contains Names and Contact Details of all the Members of the 12 Regional Associations, in a user-friendly format.
Mem Direc bers’ tory 2013
Besides, the Directory contains contact details of Suppliers to the Industry
For details on how to get a copy of the Directory, Contact FCBM Office Phone +91 22 2850 0687 | Email: admin@fcbm.org
Technical Write-ups, Developments & Technical Articles may please be sent for Publication in “The Corrugator”
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 47
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48 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
One such Pandal has showed the way by being “Green” in their use of the eco friendly and recyclable corrugated boxes, resulting in an extravagant artistic structure so pleasing to the eye.
Corrugated “Art” Boxes – “Customer Is Our God” – Now – “God Is Also Our Customer” If one thought Corrugated Board Boxes are just routine & mundane; if one believed that used boxes, found their way back only to the paper mills to be recycled as Kraft Paper only, one is pleasantly mistaken! Bengal catches up to the “Corrugated Art” followed by creative minds the world across by moulding used boxes, board etc. creatively to welcome the Goddess this Navratri or Durga Puja in the Eastern Region in October 13! The seven day festival see the “Puja Pandals” in every locality of the state vying with each other in varied theme based decorations with spectacular illuminations to welcome the Goddess with customary rituals and offerings.
The artisans have used the aesthetics characteristics of corrugated products by breaking the mould and “thinking out of the box” to create a massive edifice. The fifty feet structure was cobbled from boxes painted in different colours; the inner walls of the structure were lined with boxes etched in traditional designs and painted with the face of the deity in different hues and profiles. The upper middle portions of the walls were decorated with open ended boxes containing dolls made of Corrugated Board and Paper Cones. The ceiling were highlighted with Corrugated Board in geometrical designs by cleverly tearing of one ply to show the flutes giving square, round & rectangular shapes. Paper Cores enhanced the ceiling to give a chandelier like effect inside the pandal. The ordinary two ply board was used to create a dome like effect in the centre of the pandal.
The creativity was further enhanced by soothing lighting; the order and balance imposed by the humble corrugated paper products, gave a sense of peace and tranquility bringing with it enormous pride of being in this industry and rekindling the romance with it on being re-introduced to our very own Corrugated Board Boxes. I am sure that the Goddess is pleased with her aesthetic seven day abode on earth and will bestow her divine blessings on the industry. – Narendra Kumar Jhunjhunwala Director - Narayani Manufacturing Pvt. Ltd. – Kolkata. Vice President – EICMA Photographs - Ms. Deepika Jhunjhunwala
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 49
42nd FCBM Conference
The Conference & Exhibition for the Corrugated Packaging Industry
The Leela Palace Chennai, India
13,14,15 December 2013
INNO
AT I N G
into the Future
DAY 1 - 13th December 2013 The Industry Event of the year CORPAK INDIA 2013 - the 42nd FCBM Conference, took off to a glittering start on 13th December 2013 at the Leela Palace, Chennai. The ‘Dance of Lights’ by little girls set an auspicious note to the start of the event. The presence of his Excellency K. Rosaiah, Governor of Tamil Nadu as the Chief Guest and Hon’ble Shri G.K. Vasan, Union Minister for Shipping, as Guest of Honour – enhanced the stature of the Inaugural Event. Mr. Bala Vassudevan, President, SICBMA welcomed the delegates, exhibitors and other dignitaners in the typical Vanukkam, style The imposing temple in the Registration Area, made of corrugated board was awe insuring and created a sense of reverence. This was created and crafted by Shri Bala Vassudevan of Lath Industries , Chennai. Mr. Bala Vassudevan had also made said strong and comfortable chairs with arm rests, which was used for Registration and inauguration. This is indeed innovation par excellence. Mr. Anil Kumar Reddy, Chairman, Conference & Exhibition presented the Thematic Address, Talked about the need for Innovation and how the Theme of the Conference was concerned to focus on innovation.
50 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Mr. R. R. Ankola , in his Presidential address, underlined the over whelming presence of the corrugated in todays lifestyle. Mr. Ram Arora President – Elect outlined his Vision for 2014. Guest of Honour, Hon’ble Minister Shri. G.K. Vasan, talked about the important role played by corrugated boxes as the most preferred shipping container. He promised to look into the problem of indirect taxes which is impending the growth and progress of the corrugated packaging industry. The colourful FCBM Members Directory 2013 was released by the Chief Guest. Attractively designed Souvenir with interesting information and about FCBM technical articles was released by the Chief Guest.
Welcome Address
Inauguration of Exhibition
Thematic Address
Inaugural Address by the Chief Guest
Address by FCBM President - Elect
Address by the Guest of Honour
Vote of Thanks
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 51
Awards & Honours The Harlalka Award was presented to Mr. R.G. Agarwala and Mr. Sunil Sethi. Mr. Ramesh Gandhi of R. A. Kraft Paper Pvt. Ltd. received the prestigious B. K. Doshi Award. Mr. G. B. Reddy, former Director of IIP, Chennai announced the Corrustar 2013 Winners, on behalf of the judging committee . Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Sri. R. Muthaiyah which was received by Smt. Muthaiyah as Sri Muthaiyah could not attend the Conference due to ill health. The Platinum Sponsor – Micro Mechanical Works, Mumbai was felicitated with a Memento and a special mention of their Golden Jubilee Celebration.
Harlalka Award to Mr. R. G. Agarwala
A Special Award was presented to Sri. Bala Vassudevan, President SICBMA for his achievement of consistently winning of Corrustar Awards. A glittering Fashion Show with Laser Light rays and the models walking the ramp was the highlight of the cultural programme on 13th evening. At the Celebration Dinner’ Mr. Surinder Bhurjee was invited to cut a 50 year Celebration Cake to the tune of Congratulations. The event - packed Inaugural Programme was organized and conducted with precision and perfection to the delight of everyone.
Harlalka Award to Mr. Sunil Sethi
Lifetime Achievement Award to Sri. R. Muthaiyah. Mrs. Muthaiyah receiving the Award 52 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Earlier in the day had begum to the blowing seawinds at the Leela Palace and delegates hurring to the Registration Counter. The Exhibition in the Royal Ball Room and the Machinery Exhibition in an airconditioned hangar adjacent to the Hotel was inaugurated by Shri. R. R. Ankola President FCBM. Over 15 Corrustar Entries were displayed in a Meeting Room next to Conference office. The 5th Managing Committee Meeting was held in another Meeting Room. The 1st Technical Session on INSIGHT with a vibrant address by Prof. Pariamal Merchant was indeed an eye opener.
B. K. Doshi Award to Mr. Ramesh Gandhi of R. A. Kraft Papers
Memento Presentations
CORRUSTAR 2013 WINNERS
Release of Souvenir Consumer Pack Latha Industries, Chennai
Release of FCBM Members’ Directory - 2013
Material / Fittings & POP Display -
Packers Products, New Delhi
Innovation Pack Viva Packaging Products, Ahmedabad
Memento Presentation and release of Golden Jubilee of Micro Mechanical Works
Transport Pack Divine Packaging Industries, Chennai
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 53
DAY 2 - 14th December 2013 The day of Technical Sessions. Began with the Session 2 on, ‘Innovation’. Speakers presented papers on innovative machines and their advantages. The session 3 was on ‘Ideas’. Speakers highlighted new ideas in materials, designs and material handling. The Session 4 was on ‘Inspiration’. Specific case studies were presented on Productivity, Quality, Substitution Inventory Control and Process Controls. All the presentations were truly enriching, enlightening and rewarding. The lively cultural Programme in the evening had vibrant music and dance programme.
DAY 3 - 15th December 2013 The Session 5 was on ‘Interaction’. Mr. Ram Kumar Sunkara conducted the ‘Quiz’ with his characteristic elan and style. The interactive session was indeed a knowledge enriching session. Shop Talk was initiated by Mr. Pankaj Shah.
Technical Session – 1
Technical Sessions Memento Presentation at Technical Session - V 54 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
A view of participants at a Technical Session
Quiz Master Ram Kumar Sunkara
Laser Lights and Vibrant Dances
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 55
Exhibition
FCBM President Inaugurates the Exhibition
A view of some of the exhibition stalls 56 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
41st Annual General Meeting. At the 41st AGM of FCBM, regular issues were discussed as per agenda. The change of guard took place after the AGM. Presidents of all Regional Associations thanked SICBMA for the excellent arrangements and hospitality. Mr. Ram Arora, the new FCBM President, was felicitated by SICBMA Members, friends and relatives.
FCBM - Team 2014 At the 41st AGM of FCBM held on 13th December 2013, in Chennai, the following office bearers were elected for the year 2013-14.
Pinning in the New FCBM President
Ramchand H. Arora
Praveen Shah
N. X. George
President
Vice - President - I
Vice - President - II
Manoj Patil Hon. Treasurer
R. R. Ankola
Pradip Bosmaya Hon. Secretory
Ex-Officio
View of the Audience The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 57
Presidential Address: 13 December 2013
Respected Chief Guest of today’s inaugural function, Chairman Conference & Exhibition Shri. Anil Reddy, President of SICBMA Shri. Bala Vassudevan S. my colleagues on the dais, distinguished speakers, invitees, participants, exhibitors from India & abroad, our valued customers& suppliers, friends from media, ladies and gentlemen… Good Afternoon to you all and a warm welcome to CORPAK INDIA 2013. It is my privilege and pleasure to address you all as President of FCBM. I am grateful to you for the confidence you bestowed on me and I do hope that I have stood up to your expectations, of leading this great organization and nurturing its reputation as India’s most well organized trade body.
Activities during the year Our Federation has been quite vibrant and active during the year. Many regional associations organized Technical Seminars, Meets and Events – most of which I could attend and interact with the members. Continuing the tradition of spreading the wings of the Federation, we organized our Managing Committee Meeting at Tashkent in June 2013. Being a relatively new destination for such meets, it was unique, enjoyable and a highly fruitful meet for all members.
We took a large delegation of our members to Sino Corrugated 2013. This international event- the largest Corrugated event in the world featured more than 600 exhibitors on 62000 sq.m. of exhibition area. They had also organized a Global Packaging Summit covering every aspect of corrugated manufacturing.
It is a corrugated box that brings home your refrigerator or A.C. or T.V in a scratch - free condition.
FCBM also made its presence felt at the International Corrugated Case Association (ICCA) Summit in Paris.
Such is the overwhelming presence of corrugated in today’s life style.
When you pick a chocolate from a display stand in a retail store, it is the corrugated POP that has caught your eyes. And many more….
Mr. Kirit Modi, representing FCBM made a presentation on “Container Board and Corrugated Outlook for India 2013-15”.
Despite such importance played by corrugated packaging and the contribution of packaging to overall economic growth it is not getting the position it deserves compared to other primary packagings.
The Corrugator – official magazine of FCBM has been evoking great amount of interest among increasing number of readers both in India and abroad .
Let us not forget that it is only a good box that can deliver the primary packs in a pristine condition.
Packaging Packaging is a fascinating business. We are all in this business of Packaging. Corrugated Packaging – one of the most versatile modes of packaging, is endowed with excellent qualities. While it protects the product packed in it, it facilitates safe transportation of products over long distances – across the boundaries and seas. It is reusable, recyclable and stands out as the most eco friendly mode of packaging.
The emergence of retail – ready packages, which are primarily corrugated, is changing the perception of the manufacturers of goods, more so with the retail industry demanding well made, attractive and convenient packages that are shelf-ready.
Federation Our Federation stands on 12 Pillars – each representing a regional association. We have over 2200 corrugated box makers as members located across India.
Over the years the brown box has taken many ‘avataras’. It is today colourful, printed with attractive graphics and useful information. The box acts like a salesman for the products.
At every Annual Conference, FCBM presents Shri Harlalka Award to an eminent member of the Federation in recognition of his contribution to the growth of Industry and Federation.
When the pizza boy delivers ‘a round pizza in a square box’ – it is the corrugated that has made it easy to carry and the vented box has kept the pizza hot and fresh.
FCBM also has instituted Shri B. K. Doshi Award to an organization in recognition of its contribution to Innovation and excellence in Corrugated Packaging. I congratulate this year’s awardees.
When mangoes get transported from the groves to your home or retail store, it is the corrugated box that has facilitated the transportation of fresh produce.
58 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
In order to encourage innovation and excellence, in corrugated packaging, the Federation has instituted CorruStar Awards.
Conference
The Industry
Special Thanks
As I said earlier, we are in the business of packaging. We need to bring passion into our business. We need to innovate into the future as the theme of this conference suggests. We need to innovate to survive and thrive.
Corrugated Packaging Industry in India is highly fragmented with over 12000 units spread across the country. Most of the units use manual semi-automatic processes while the number of units using automatic process with in-line automatic plants, is steadily increasing.
Before I conclude, I would like to thank all the Past Presidents for sharing their rich experience and continuously guiding me during my tenure. I cherish and value their guidance and cooperation.
Friends, the next three days of this Conference, will give us ‘Insight’ ‘Inspiration’ and ‘Ideas’ to ‘Interact’ and ‘Innovate into the Future’. I am sure you’ll be enriched and benefited from the deliberations in these Technical Sessions. I am sure you will also enjoy the Southern Hospitality and the excellent arrangement made by SICBMA for your comfort and pleasure.
Economic Scenario It has been a volatile year with economy going down, rupee sliding down due to global as well as domestic factors. Thanks to the timely steps initiated by the Government and the bold moves by the new dynamic Governor of RBI, the economy has gathered itself on strong feet and regained its growth path. This once again reiterates the resilience of our economy. The good monsoon this year across the country has boosted agricultural production. Growth in agricultural produce, the implementation of FDI and other reforms will trigger demand for packaging. Our Finance Minister is confident of 5 5.5% growth in the current fiscal year. With exports up by 14% in October, factory output growing, the sensex shooting up, I am sure the ‘Happy Days will be here again’ – like the good old Coca Cola slogan!!
The industry is highly labour - oriented and employs over one million people directly. The industry is converting over 4.5 million tonnes of paper into corrugated boards and boxes. The market for corrugated packaging is growing steadily with increasing demand for packaged goods and insurgence of global brands. As an industry serving the manufacturers of consumer and industrial products, we have always some issues to be resolved to help us serve the industry better. The increasing prices of kraft paper has been a perennial problem. The much awaited GST has still not seen the light of the day due to differences from some of the State Governments. I hope that the problem will be resolved at the earliest as the entire gamut of industry is keenly waiting for the introduction of GST. Implementation of FDI in Retail will be the much awaited shot in the arm for the packaging industry triggering demand for large volumes of packaging, shelf ready packages, eye-catching POPs etc. – areas in which corrugated packaging will play a vital role. The shift of the F & V packaging into the Corrugated, will be the game changer. We need to be fully geared up to meet such demands that will open up in the years to come.
I thank all the Chairmen of various Sub Committees for the excellent work done by them during my tenure as President. I thank the Presidents of our Regional Associations for working with me and supporting me in my task. I thank both the Editors of the House Magazine, “The Corrugator” - Shri. Ashok Vyas and Shri Harish Madan for taking the magazine to an international level. I shall be failing in my duty if I do not offer my special thanks to my colleagues Shri Ram Arora, Shri P.S. Shah, Shri Pradip Bosmaya, Shri Manoj Patil and other Managing Committee Members for the excellent support given to me throughout the year. I also wish to thank Ms. Sudha Menon, Executive Secretary and the staff of FCBM for the hard work put in throughout the year. I compliment Team SICMA for making such wonderful arrangements for the Conference. Our Federation is regarded as one of the most organized trade bodies in India. To me, FCBM also stands for the Family of Corrugated Box Manufacturers of India. That is the kind of fraternity and fellowship we enjoy. Let us keep the combined family of FCBM growing to greater heights.
Wish you all a Happy New Year Jai FCBM, Jai Hind.
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 59
60 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
What They say about ‘The Corrugator’
April - June 2012
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CORRUGATED
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41st FCBM Conference - Mumbai
Dear Sir, Thank you for sending me the July-September 2013 issue of “The Corrugator”. I was immensely happy. I have read several other issues when I was in college (SIES School of Packaging). It is a very precised and detailed magazine. It gives an overall knowledge and news of the corrugating industry. The articles have very minute knowledge of certain concepts that maybe we wouldn’t think over. This magazine had helped me a lot during my projects in college. Though I don’t remember the version but I surely remember the subject about the article which helped me. The article was about what aspects should be considered while designing the corrugated box for a totally new product.
Dear Sir I had the pleasuer of going thru’ the above issue. I can understand the huge amount of effort involved in producing a quality document of this nature. My observations and suggestions are attached. The Corrugator- July-September 2013 issue 1. Quality of the newspaper: It is of comparable international standard for a publication of this sort. The paper, printing, illustrative photos, lay-out, are all very impressive, projecting the sound status of the industry. A good start indeed. 2. Content: Good articles, mostly of foreign origin, cover some aspects of the technology and materials. 3. Coverage: Many areas are covered, but may be not comprehensive. 4. What could be considered for future?
I still vividly remember there was a nomograph in which if we knew the ECT of the board we can exactly find out the BCT of the box.
As I was not so experienced in determining the specification of our corrugated box according to our product, “The Corruagtor” was a relief for me then.
I thank “The Corrugator” for helping me throughout my college and even now when I am working. It builts up my knowledge as it builts up its own fame with each new issue.
The editing of the magazine is also very well built and I would be extremely happy for writing an article or two for this magazine.
Sending you my experience of “The Corugator”. Thanks and Regards Pritha Das Hygienic Research Institute, Mumbai Former Student of SIES School of Packaging
A] The newspaper may be registered for wider circulation and priced for nonmembers. B] Articles on [a] growth areas [b] threats from other technologies, such as, shrink- wrap, stretch-wrap, etc, [c] advances in India in the raw materials, machinery, automation, quality testing and evaluation, etc., so as to sustain reader interest. [d] calendar of events organized by the federation and regional units.
Best wishes. M. R. Subramanian Former Director, Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP)
Dear Sir The Corrugator is the official Magazine of the Federation of Corrugated Box Manufacturers of India. It is the spokesman of the organization it represents. The magazine covers the industry and its aspirations well. Perhaps, the Magazine could include more technical features written by experts to cover the basics of the science & technology of corrugation. This would help students of packaging to understand and appreciate the state – of – the – art much better. The presentation of the machinery and technology suppliers is well covered by the publication and seminars and conference proceedings could be covered in special issues to benefit readers who cannot attend. Dr. R. Rangaprasad, Director, SIES School of Packaging, Navi Mumbai. E mail: director@siesopptc.net Dear Sir, About my and EMBA opinion on “THE CORRUGATOR”, we feel it is read by all corrugated manufacturers in INDIA but definitely the eagerness to read this magazine is limited to majority of manual and semi automatic plants! The contents are also limited to the Indian industry and seldom recognised as Magazine that goes beyond Indian Industry and seldom covers all parts of India. To my knowledge, majority of our potential clients look more information from International Paper Board Industry Magazine as most of them want to go beyond Chinese technology. Best regards Chiran Sastry, EMBA
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 61
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The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 63
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RFID Techniques – An Integrated Approach Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a term used for any device that can be sensed at a distance by radio frequencies with few problems of obstruction. The origin of the term lies in the invention of tags that reflect or re-transmit a radio-frequency signal. According to a recent article by Forrester Research, the minimal ‘Slap and Ship’ (a short-term, stopgap, minimal-volume approach that involves placing RFID tags on cases and pallets in a distribution centre for those goods being shipped to customers with an RFID mandate) approach to RFID compliance will cost an individual company between USD 2 million and USD 20 million. Since retailers like ‘Wal-Mart plan to share with their suppliers all the RFIDgenerated date points (from when a case / pallet enters their distribution centre until it leaves their stockroom), suppliers will eventually be able to use this data as a powerful forecasting tool. RFID is an enabling technology that can potentially facilitate a real-time, end-to-end supply chain visibility system. Suppliers who integrate full-scale RFID systems will realise efficiencies in time, material movement, inventory planning, shipping and warehousing; both, internally and externally. RFJD is an enabling technology that can potentially facilitate a real-time, end-to-end supply chain visibility system. Suppliers who integrate full-scale RFID systems will realise efficiencies in time, material movement, inventory planning, shipping
and warehousing; both, internally and externally. This paper provides a brief overview of the RFID technology, mandates by retailers and federal agencies, advances towards global standardisation, typical consumer level RFID applications and discusses RFID initiatives taken by some of the global leaders in apparel, consumer goods and fresh produce. In addition, the paper provides a summary of where RFID is in terms of meeting the global challenges.
Introduction Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a means of storing and retrieving data through electromagnetic transmission to an RF compatible integrated circuit, was recently ranked the tenth most innovative technology of the past 25 years by CNN. RFID technology presents an odd paradox,
Dr. S. P. Singh, Professor School of Packaging Michigan State University, USA Dr. Robb Clarke, Associate Professor School of Packaging Michigan State University, USA Dr. Jay Singh, Assistant Professor Orfalea College of Business California Polytechnic State University, USA Michael Mc Cartney, Principal QLM Consulting, USA it has been around for over 60 years and it still stays ahead of its time. Experts are predicting unabated exponential growth in rapidly growing and diversifying markets for RFID in the future. The total market, including systems and services, is predicted to reach USD 26.9 billion by the year 2015. According to Erik Michelsen, Director of RFID Research, ABI Research, ‘We are seeing companies increase their RFID budgets three to five times this year compared to 2004’. RFID promises a slew of benefits to manufacturers and retailers alike, including more control over the supply chain and enhanced product security. High profile compliance mandates (Wal-Mart, DoD etc.) and cost savings for businesses are the main factors fueling the growth of RFID. Research by the Yankee Group, an IT consultancy in Boston, indicates RFID technology could save USD 2 billion to USD 4 billion, annually for consumer packaged goods and retail industries. A study by the consulting firm, Accenture shows that manufacturers could reduce their working capital requirements between two and eight per cent and reduce inventory levels even more with RFID-enabled processes. RFID deployment is expected to be substantial. Many market research firms estimate that there will be nearly a tenfold increase in supply chain RFID use over the
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 65
66 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
next five years. The total global market for all RFID systems is expected to roughly double in size in just three years, growing from USD 1 .I billion in 2003 to USD 2.1 billion by the end of 2005. Additionally, RFID patents are rapidly being granted. By the end of 2003, approximately 4,300 RFID-related patents were granted, with more than three-fourths of them granted since 1999.
Among the many advantages of RFID over other automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technologies such as bar codes is often the ability to identify assets without a clear line of sight between tag and reader, ability to function in harsh environments, permit numerous tags to be read seemingly simultaneously, read / write capability and to provide a high level of data security. These advantages and their
RFID Basics
associated cost savings have caused some leading retailers and government agencies to issue RFID mandates to their suppliers.
RFID involves the use of electronic tags with integrated circuit chips that can store data. The tags, affixed to the asset, transmit their data via low power radio waves to reading systems which are tuned to the same frequency, enabling transactions to be recorded and tracked. A typical transmission sequence consists of a system handshake, data modulation and data encoding as illustrated in Figure 1. A form of RFID tags are battery powered or ‘active’, but ‘passive’ or ‘backscatter’ tags are slated to be more widely used. This category of tags derives all their power from the readers signal. Nearly all RFID systems operate on one of the four frequency bands, namely, low frequency (125 - 134 kHz), high frequency (13.553 - 13.567 MHz), ultra high frequency (400— 1000 MHz) and microwave (2.45 GHz). The read range typically increases with increase in frequency. Low frequencies are commonly adopted for applications such as livestock tracking, card-key and access-control. High frequency RFID is more flexible and is utilised for applications such as baggage handling. UHF is the most widely used RFID band due to its robustness and reading range. Key applications for UHF band are materials management and supply chain tracking. Microwave band features in applications such as electronic toll collection and railroad monitoring.
Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target have identified RFID as a technology to help improve their supply chain management. Wal-Mart is one of the most aggressive retailers in implementing RFID. Over a year ago, Wal-Mart mandated its top 100 suppliers to tag all their case units and pallets delivered to three of its Texas distribution centres by 1 January, 2005. In spite of initial difficulties in coming to grips with the mandate, the top 100 suppliers are currently tagging at least one stock keeping unit (SKU) category in their shipments to Wal-Mart’s distribution centres. Another 38 suppliers voluntarily decided to work with Wal-Mart to meet its RFID requirements. RFID provides an opportunity to reduce supply chain costs, speed the flow of merchandise from manufacturing through distribution centres and to the retail stores, and to provide consumers with better product availability. A recent study by the research group, Gartner shows that RFID use in supply chains could result in a 90% decrease in location errors, 40% decrease in inventory counting time and 15% increase in productivity. Retailers, at the present time, are requiring suppliers to provide RFID tags at case and pallet level and will eventually, item level tagging.
Government agencies such as Department of Defense (DOD) as well as Foods and Drug Administration (FDA) are also considered their suppliers to incorporate RFID tags in their shipments to them. DOD mandated all contracts issued after 1 “October, 2004 to apply RFID tags to all cases and pallets and to individual high value items (USD 5,000 or more) shipped to DOD. Due to some forecasting problems and failure to adequately notify DOD’s nearly 43,000 suppliers of the RFID mandate and the current RFID tag shortage, the date was pushed to April, 2005. With increasing drug counterfeiting concerns, FDA has identified RFID as a major tool in its attempt to combat this problem. RFID is to help create a ‘pedigree’ (a secure record documenting that a drug was manufactured and distributed under safe and secure conditions) for drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. Companies like Purdue Pharma, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer have already commenced pilot programmes to incorporate RFID in cases of products deemed susceptible to counterfeiting. Thereafter, till some time then, lack of harmonized specification (the communications protocol between RFID tags and readers) threatened to substantially delay the implementation of RFID at a global level. Vendors adopted various electronic product code (EPC) standards such as EPC Class 0, 64/96bit read-only tags and Class 1, 64/96-bit write once - read many (WORM) tags. This led to vendor hardware incompatibility, low tag-yield rates, high tag costs and manufacturing capacity constraints. In December, 2004; EPC Global, a developer of industry standards for EPC (electronic product code), ratified its second generation EPC specification for tracking goods using UHF tags. The ‘Gen 2’ standard promises a number of much more sophisticated features than ‘Gen 1’ protocols. These include a global, open, interoperable standard, faster read rates 00 times faster than Gen 1), smaller size chips (approximately 20%), high reliability, denser reader operation, kill security
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(enhancement with 32-bit password encryption and permanent kill capacity) and improved write capability. Starting as early as January 2005 and later that year (third quarter of 2005 for companies like Phillips Semiconductors and Texas Instruments), companies have or are planning to start full production of Gen 2 chips.
RFID Applications and Industry Initiatives RFID is being adopted in three principle areas namely transportation and distribution, manufacturing and processing, and security and law enforcement. Secondary areas of application, some of which are steadily growing in terms of application numbers include animal tagging, waste management, time and attendance, postal tracking, airline baggage reconciliation and road toll management. The supply chain at its present stage is not as it needs to be. Every year, billions of dollars are lost because products are not shipped on time or in the right quantities. Often, wrong products are shipped or the shipments get accidentally misdirected. On occasions, shipments get miscounted or miscoded on the receiving end and sometimes loss is created by theft, which can occur at any point in the supply chain. RFID based supply chain management systems promise the potential to rectify a majority of the shortcomings of the present day supply chain. There are, of course, obstacles in the development, implementation and acceptance of RFID, as is the case with any immature technology. These obstacles include standardisation, price and privacy/ ethical issues. RFID also faces challenges in cases where the product contains water based liquid and when the tag is placed on or near metal packaging. Multinational consumer goods manufacturers such as Gillette, Kimberly Clark as well as Procter and Gamble have, in recent years, initiated RFID pilot studies to foster a new culture of innovation to achieve dramatic efficiencies in their supply chain.
On the issue of price, considering the estimated number of units in supply chain as shown in Table 1, a universal adoption of RFID technology will provide tag manufacturers encouragement to bring down the costs with increased production. Alien Technology has recently announced that their pitch labels would cost approximately 12.9 cents and Avery Dennison is providing its inlays at 7.9 cents. It is clear that with recent low price introductions of tags and devices by major manufacturers, these trends will continue as the use of RFID tags become widespread. The January 2006 issue of DC Velocity, a leading trade magazine covering logistics solutions for distribution predicts 900 billion food items could carry RFID tags by 2015. Table 1: Estimated Number of Units in Supply Chain for Major Consumer Product Companies 14 End User CHEP
Estimated No. of Units in Supply Chain (Billions) 0.2
Johnson & Johnson (Consumer Goods Division)
3
Kimberly Clark
10
Westvaco
10
The Gillette Company
11
YFY
15
Tesco
15
The Procter & Gamble Company
20
Unilever
20
Phillip Morris Company
25
Wal-Mart
30
International Paper
53
Coca-Cola
200
Sub Total
412.2
(Adjust for double counting @15%)
61.8
United State Postal Services
205
Total Including USPS
555.4
The next section of the paper discusses key initiatives by various companies that are supplying products and packages in the retail distribution supply chain. Several
of these test results and projections were presented at the RFID fresh and RFID retail programmes developed by Dr. S. P Singh of Michigan State University and Mr. Michael McCartney of QLM Consulting in 2004 and 2005. These two programmes were attended by leading packaging, food and consumer goods companies to share results of various tests conducted to find RFID suitability to track and trace packages in the supply chain.
Consumer Goods Testing and Evaluation Procter and Gamble (P&G), a global leader in consumer goods, is another company that has actively sought RFID based solution for its supply chain. The company boasts USD 51.4 billion in annual sales, approximately 300 brands in more than 160 countries and approximately 98,000 employees worldwide. Some potential benefits that P&G has identified for EPC adoption are improved shelf availability (sales increase), inventory reduction, labour productivity from non-line-of-sight capabilities, reducing shipping and receiving errors, overall shrink reduction, asset tracking, anticounterfeit protection and other future transformational benefits. Following are some of the goals P&G has set for itself to stay ahead of the curve for RFID implementation: • Form multi-functional team • Conduct performance testing • Incubate qualifying technology • Evaluate validating benefits • Stay active in EPC standards development • Perform learning pilots One of the pilots P&G was involved with researched tag / reader performance optimisation issues as related to four of its top selling brand products. These included paper product (Charmin), granules (Tide powder), liquid (Pantene, Tide liquid), and metallised packages (Cascade). These product/ package systems were selected to observe the readability of RFID tags through different physical constitutions. Cont. on Page 73
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Cont. from Page 73 Each of these brands is prominent and recognised worldwide with sales exceeding USD 1 billion. Nine cases of the product per tier were placed three high on pallets. Alien Technology’s ‘squiggle’ tags were placed on the exposed sides of the cases as shown in Figure 2. The pallets on conveyor belts were then passed by reader antennas facing one of the sides at two different speeds, 0.625 mph and 5 mph.
away. Also, tags placed at or near the height level of the reader antenna were identified better. • The speed at which the pallet passed by the reader antenna dictated readability of the tags. Increased pallet speed produced less reads. With the correct reader configuration and within speeds tested, any single case in single file on a conveyor, or any single unshielded pallet tags through the dock door could be read. Charmin paper rolls for example had a near 100% readability (5+ reads) at 0.635 mph and only 20% at 5 mph. • The technology is not capable for auditing mixed pallets or multiple cases on a pallet, or multiple pallets through a dock door, across all product categories, against an overall objective of 100% read rate.
Figure 2: Tag and reader antenna placement for palletised cases. Some of the conclusions drawn from this pilot study and testing include: • Product type is the most critical overall variable. The nature of the product and packaging material makes a significant difference in readability. Paper product packaged in a polymer film (Charmin) exhibited the best reads (near 100% at 0.625 mph pass) followed by dry granulated powder packaged in a paperboard carton (Tide powder), liquid product in a polymer bottle (Pantene hair care product) and powdered dishwashing product packaged in an aluminum foil laminated paperboard carton (Tide dishwashing powder). • The distance of the RFID tag from the circular type of reader antenna makes an impact on readability. The tags placed closest to the antenna were read more often than those farther
The results of this study are represented in Figure 3 as developed by Procter and Gamble to simplify the understanding of test results. This type of visualisation techniques helps end-users understand the complexity of this technology and how it performs differently with different products and packages while using the same tags, hardware and software.
Division at Michigan State University’s RFID retail Seminar the graph as shown in Figure 4 was used to illustrate the impact of RFID adoption on tag costs. Similar to P&G and its role with consumer goods, Gillette, a century old company, has staked out a leadership position in the use of RFID. In January 2003, Gillette placed an order of 500 million Class 1 EPC tags, the largest order ever placed. The goal of Gillette was to foster a new culture of innovation to achieve dramatic efficiencies in its supply chain. The company has staked out a leadership position in the use of RFID, specifically the Electronic Product Code (EPC) developed by the Auto-ID Centre. Another startup company called OAT Systems provided some of the middleware needed to filter the RFID data coming from readers. Gillette believes that EPC technology will ultimately provide the visibility needed to enable the company to reduce its inventory levels while ensuring that its products are always at the retail store when customers want to buy them.
Figure 4: The impact of adoption on tag costs14.
Figure 3: P&G tag / reader performance optimisation results 14. The Procter & Gamble Company is presently looking at the price per tag to fall to USD 0.05 level in order for it to move beyond simply complying with the retailer mandates and moving forward with wider level acceptance over different products. In a presentation made by P&G’s Bud Babcock of the Customer eBusiness
In 2003, Gillette launched a major EPC trial at its packaging and distribution centre for the northeastern United States located at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. In an effort to validate the business case for using EPC technology and to develop a scalable solution, the company was tracking all cases and pallets of its Venus women’s razors within its centre. The goal of the pilot was not to see if tags on pallets and cases can be read automatically, but rather to develop the systems and business processes needed to sustain extra-ordinary levels of efficiency and productivity.
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At the Fort Devens facility, a subcontractor puts Venus razors into packages and then into cases. The cases are stacked on a pallet, which is then transferred to the adjacent distribution centre. There the pallet may be loaded onto a truck bound for a retailer’s store or distribution centre, or its cases may be removed and stacked on other pallets to fill orders requiring less an entire pallet’s worth of the same product. The facility also has a United Parcel Service conveyor for parcel deliveries and a special pack area where items used in special promotions can be boxed. The EPC system, now lets Gillette automatically record and track every case of Venus razors in its pack centre. The system also allows Gillette to know how long a case was at the pack centre, where it was stored and when it was shipped. By extending the pilot to a retailer, Gillette plans to be able to quantify EPC technology’s ability to improve order accuracy, reduce administrative error, facilitate the investigation of problems and eliminate areas of vulnerability. Gillette has not quantified the return on investment from EPC technology yet, but here are significant business benefits the company expects to achieve: l Reduce the number of pallet touch points, resulting in efficiencies and labour savings l Eliminate manual case and pallet scanning l Do away with manual case counting l Cut back on label printing and application l Shorten the time it takes to check an order before shipping l Improve forecasting l Lower overall inventory levels l Increase on-shelf availability of products l Improve customer service levels
Apparel Products VF Corporation, an industry leader in jeans wear (Wrangler, Lee etc.) intimates (Vanity Fair, Lily of France etc.), outdoor
wear (Jansport, Eastpak etc.), Imagewear (NFL, Bulwark etc.) and sportswear (Nautica) has annual sales in excess of USD 600 million each year. VF Corporation’s supply chain is very complex. It produces 500 million units annually with 500,000 SKUs by over 1,000 owner / contracted factories worldwide, thousands of miles away from their customers, delivered to 43 distribution centres and shipped to 47,000 retailers in more than 25 countries and over 240,000 households. All of this is done within selling seasons. For example, the National Football League’s (NFL) Super Bowl events require that the championship team’s apparel start to sell immediately after the event. Most of the sales of apparel for such special occasions peak for only weeks and not months. To maintain better control of goods moving S through its supply chain, VF Corporation started looking at RFID as a possible solution in 1993 and developed the tag specifications by 1995. By 2000, the company had identified 3 vendors that could meet the specifications selected. in 2000, however, the cost per tag was
USD 0.35 and with the required quarter to half billion tags, it far exceeded benefits sought from such a system. VF Corporation decided to wait for the price per tag to drop before a complete implementation of RFID for all product categories. The goal for VF Corporation is to comply with Wal-Mart and other RFID tagging requirements. Three VF coalitions and seven distribution centres (Figure 5) are presently involved in Wal-Mart RFID tagging implementation. All Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) programming changes to support RFID are complete (each coalition has a separate WMS. The WMS’s are currently being modified to support 96 bit tag (‘Gen 2’). VF Jeanswear is also, presently, participating in the Target RFID pilot. By February, 2005; VF Corporation had sent approximately 10,000 tagged cases to Wal-Mart. Figure 6 shows VF Corporation’s RFID setup at their distribution centre in Mission, Texas. Due to failure at encoding and validation, the company is currently experiencing a 5% failure rate. All of these failures are remediated prior to shipment to Wal-Mart. Preliminary results from Wal-
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Mart have shown that they are reading 98% of the tags from VF Corporation. Among the future RFID goals for VF Corporation are: Tactical compliance initiatives
with
customer
Utilisation of RFID information from WalMart and other retailers Strategic migration to item level tagging including: • Internal inventory control • Replacement of Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) tag • Quality control • Product returns • Procurement of tags at a realistic charge
Figure 6: VF Corporation’s RFID setup in Mission, TX DC17.
Fresh Fruits and Vegetables (Produce) A significant amount of research has been conducted at the Fresh Produce RFID Test Centre in Salinas, CA in 2004-2005. These projects were done on a collaborative basis by CH Robinson, Newstar, QLM Consulting and additional growers of fresh produce. In addition, during RFIDretail and RFlDfresh, Tanimura and Antle Inc., a global leading provider of fresh vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli and celery) shared some key common results. The direct conclusions of the tests indicated:
Figure 7: Testing of fork truck palletised handling of RFID tagged reusable plastic crates. • 95-100% reads of RFID tagged cases feasible • Effect of metal (forklift effect) was critical in readability • Effect of high water-content products such as celery are deterrent to RFID reads • The speed of travel on either conveyors for cases or for trucks with palletised loads is critical Figure 7 show a palletised load of fresh produce in reusable plastic containers (RPC’s) tested with RFID tags. The choice of packaging material (plastic RPC’s versus corrugated shipping boxes or trays) for the same produce may produce different results.
New Trends This paper provides a summary of various test projects and studies done using RFID tags - Generation I. Today, Generation II tags have been developed by suppliers of RFID technology that have a higher percentage of read rates. Also, Wal-Mart stores in their implementation programmes have successfully reached as high as 100% read rates on incoming pallets at their test sites. Similarly, test labs have validates certain products and packages with 100% read rates on conveyors with speeds of 300 feet per minute. Significant advantages of RFID enabling a complete visibility and tracking of the supply chain and prevent other loss of
inventory from pilferage and theft are beneficial to large retailers and expensive products (apparel, razors, shoes, beauty aids, over the counter pharmaceuticals, music and video products, electronics etc.). The benefits of this technology does not seem to reach or impact smaller shops selling low value products like retailers Dollar Store and Dollar General.
This technology will continue to grow from the pallet level, to case level, and ultimately to item level for expensive products.
Conclusion Based on all these tests and reviews, the authors have found that testing and evaluation of RFID readability and effectiveness is complex and critical due to the wide range of interactions and factors that can influence tag read based on the packaging, product, environment and material handling equipment. Therefore, each product and package needs to be evaluated based on its anticipated environment of use to provide high accuracy of reads in the shortest time and minimum duplication of equipment. Recent RFID trends with testing of Gen II tags shows a much higher level of acceptance of functionality based on product and package types. In addition, the trends of RFID tagging and traceability will continue to become more prevalent. The advantage and expense of this technology will clearly be borne by the leading consumer product manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, Gillette, Kimberly Clarke etc. and provide visibility to long and complex supply chains of large retailers like Wal-Mart Stores. Courtesy: Packaging India, Aug. – Sept. 2013, This article is reprinted with permission from Indian Institute of Packaging, Mumbai
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The Future of Manufacturing Opportunities to Drive Economic Growth Over the past several decades, the globalization of the manufacturing ecosystem has driven more change and impacted the prosperity of more companies, nations and people than at any time since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Nations around the world have taken part in and benefited from the rapid globalization of industry and expansion of manufacturing. Globalization of manufacturing has been a key driver of higher-value job creation and a rising standard of living for the growing middle class in emerging nation economies. This has dramatically changed the nature of competition between emerging and developed nations as well as between companies. Recent research con-firms manufacturing has been immensely important to the prosperity of nations, with over 70% of the income variations of 128 nations explained by differences in manufactured product export data alone. A number of factors have enabled this rapid globalization, including a significant change in geopolitical relations between East and West, the widespread growth of digital information, physical and financial infrastructure, computerized manufacturing technologies and the proliferation of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. These factors, along with others, have permitted the disaggregation of supply chains into complex global networks allowing a company to interact in the design, sourcing of materials and components and manufacturing of products from virtually anywhere—while satisfying customers almost anywhere. While digital technology and free trade proliferation will continue to enable the flattening of the world and the globalization of manufacturing supply chains, the dominant factors that shaped
the disaggregated supply chains we find today will not be the same as those that carry us through the next several decades. The global environment is changing. Many emerging economies used by multinationals as locations of low-cost labor, have developed significant
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, New York, Ny, USA
developed nation counterparts. Greater prosperity and higher wages are helping drive an increased ability, and desire, to consume by these growing middle classes, making them much more an exciting market of new consumers and much less a source for low-cost labor. With the seeds planted by these multinationals, and the opportunity to serve these new markets, powerful new competitors are growing every day. This will profoundly reshape manufacturing supply chains over the coming several decades. But this reshaping will also be influenced by complex macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges, including exposure to currency volatility, sovereign debt pressures and emerging protectionist policies of many countries to gain access to emerging and prosperous new markets. All of these factors are driving more localized manufacturing supply chains.
manufacturing and innovation capabilities permitting them to produce increasingly advanced manufactured products. At the same time, these economies have begun to experience a corresponding escalation in wages and costs, following in the footsteps of their
While we expect the forces that initiated this rapid globalization to continue, we also see some clear and important new trends emerging that will define manufacturing and competition over the next 20 years. These trends will require the attention and collaboration of policy-makers, civil society and business leaders:
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The infrastructure necessary to enable manufacturing to flourish and contribute to job growth will grow in importance and sophistication and be challenging for countries to develop and maintain. Investing in effective infrastructure has been essential for emerging nations to be included as a potential location by multinationals and thus participate in the benefits derived from the globalization of manufacturing. This trend will intensify in the future. Reinvestment in maintaining competitive in-frastructure will become critical for developed nations to keep pace. Public funding support for infrastructure development will be a challenge for developed nations given the expected long tail on sovereign debt issues. Effective public-private partnerships will be essential to address this. While infrastructure alone will not lead directly to bestin-class manufacturing, a serious lack of infrastructure or a steadily decaying infrastructure will negatively impact a nation’s manufacturing competitiveness and create serious obstacles for the supply chain networks of global multinationals. Competition between nations to attract foreign direct investment will increase dramatically raising the stakes for countries and complicating the decision processes for companies. Annual foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows for manufacturing more than doubled to average US$ 350 billion from 2006 through 2009, and manufacturing accounted for 26% of global FDI projects in 2010, generating 1.1 million jobs. FDI is a means to bring manufacturing and research facilities to a country, building infrastructure in public-private partnerships and leveraging the multiplier effect of manufacturing on service jobs across the nation. As public funding challenges mount, the competition between nations for FDI will increase dramatically. Membership in the World Association of Investment Promotion Associations has increased by 2.5 times since 2001. For companies, the myriad of potential investment options will be
increasingly hard to differentiate and navigate. But investments in the wrong location and not contributing enough to truly advance a company’s global competitive capabilities will have long lasting negative consequences and be Increasingly hard to unwind.
consumption will more than double, from a 1990 baseline, to roughly 770 quadrillion Btu, and outpace the increase in population over the same time period. Demand for and cost of energy will only increase with future population growth and industrialization
Growing materials resources competition and scarcity will fundamentally alter country and company resources strategies and competition and serve as a catalyst to significant materials sciences breakthroughs.
Environmental and sustainability concerns will demand that nations respond effectively and responsibly to the future energy challenge. All nations will be seeking competitive energy policies that ensure affordable and reliable energy supply.
Dematid for rare earth elements increased sixfold from 2009 to 2010, with China supplying 95% of global demand. In the short term, countries and companies react to rising scarcity and prices of materials, such as rare earth elements, by stockpiling or hedging. In the longer term, success will be marked by discoveries of alternative elements, investing in latent supply access, breakthroughs in materials sciences and more efficient practices governing the use of materials. Affordable clean energy strategies and effective energy policies will be top priorities for manufacturers and policy-makers, and serve as important differentiators of highly competitive countries and companies. By 2035 the US Energy Information Administration expects world energy
All manufacturing sectors will be forced to seek new ways of manufacturing, from energy efficient product designs to energy efficient operations and logistics. Collaboration between company leaders and policy-makers will become an imperative to solve the energy puzzle. The ability to innovate, at an accelerated pace, will be the most important capability differentiating the success of countries and companies. Companies regarded as more innovative grew net income over two times faster and their market capitalization nearly two times faster from 2006 to 2010 compared to their non-innovative counterparts. Countries that are more successful at fostering innovation perform better, whether looking at GDP or GDP per capita.
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Companies must innovate to stay ahead of competition, and must be enabled by infrastructure and a policy environment that better supports university/research lab breakthroughs in science and technology and investment budgets that permit dedicated pursuits. In the 21st century manufacturing environment, being able to develop creative ideas, addressing new and complex problems and delivering innovative products and services to global markets will be the capabilities most coveted by both countries and companies. But even more essential for innovation to flourish will be access to a workforce capable of driving it. Talented human capital will be the most critical resource differentiating the prosperity of countries and companies. An estimated 10 million jobs with manufacturing organizations cannot be filled today due to a growing skills gap. Despite the high unemployment rate in many developed economies, companies are struggling to fill manufacturing jobs with the right talent. And emerging economies cannot fuel their growth without more talent. Access to talent will become more important and more competitive. Today’s skills gap will not close in the near future. Companies and countries that can attract, develop and retain the highest skilled talent—from scientists, researchers and engineers to technicians and skilled production workers—will come out on top. In the race to future prosperity, nothing will matter more than talent. The strategic use of public policy as an enabler of economic development will intensify, resulting in a competition between nations for policy effectiveness and placing a premium on collaboration between policy-makers and business loaders to create win-win outcomes. With competition increasing for so many resources and capabilities, and with the prosperity of nations hanging in the balance, policy-makers will be actively looking for the right combination of trade,
tax, labor, energy, education, science, technology and industrial policy levers to generate the best possible future for their citizens. Despite many instances of failed industrial policies in history, policy-makers are increasingly turning to intervention in an attempt to influence outcomes and accelerate manufacturing sector development with several G20 countries, including China, India and Brazil, recently coming out with industrial policies. This means that policy-makers, in a complex global network of interdependencies, will need to carefully pull the right levers, at the right time, in a balanced approach and mindful of unintended consequences. Companies will need to be more sophisticated and engaged in their interactions with policy-makers to help strike the balanced approach necessary to enable success for all. In the future, nations will increasingly compete with each other to drive high-value job creation and harness the advantages of a globally leading manufacturing innovation ecosystem. Manufacturing companies—current powers and new entrants—will engage in an intensifying, talent-driven innovation competition to dominate profitable markets for new and existing customers. As this unfolds, both government policy agendas and manufacturing company strategies will be shaped by growing competition around common resources and capabilities. The involvement of policymakers in shaping outcomes will steadily grow and require stronger col-laboration with business leaders to achieve success. The preceeding is the Executive Summary of The Future of Manufacturing: Opportunities to Drive Economic Growth report released by the WoridEconomic Forum in collaboration with Deloitte Touche Tobmatsu Limited. The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by en-gaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society
to shape globa4 regional and industry agendas. For more information, visit www.weforum.org. The Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited Global Manufacturing Industry group is comprised of around 2,000 member firm partners and over 13,000 member firm industry professionals in over 45 countries. The group’s deep industry knowledge, service line experience, and thought leadership allows them to solve complex business issues with member firm clients in every corner of the globe. Deloitte memberfirms attract, develop, and retain the very best professionals and instill a set of shared values centered on integrity, value to clients, and commitment to each other and strength from diversity. For more information about the Global Manufacturing Industry group, please visit www.deloitte.com/Manufacturing.
This article is reprinted with permission from the International Association of Diecutting and Diemaking’s monthly magazine, The Cutting Edge The IADD is an international trade association serving diecutters, diemakers and industry suppliers worldwide. IADD provides conferences, educational and training programs, a monthly magazine, online resource library of 450+ technical articles, industry experts to answer technical questions, publications and training manuals, recommended specifications, online used equipment marketplace, videos and more. IADD also co-presents Odyssey, a bi-annual trade show and innovative concept in technical training featuring a hands-on Techshop where training programs come alive in an actual working diemaking and diecutting facility inside the exhibit area. Visit www.iadd.org or call 1-815-4557519 for more information.
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86 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
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88 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
The Trend of Finnish Babies Sleeping in a Box For 75 years, Finland’s expectant mothers have been given a box by the state. It’s like a starter kit of clothes, sheets and toys that can even be used as a bed. And some say it helped Finland achieve one of the world’s lowest infant mortality rates. It’s a tradition that dates back to the 1930s and it’s designed to give all children in Finland, no matter what background they’re from, an equal start in life. The maternity package - a gift from the government - is available to all expectant mothers. It contains bodysuits, a sleeping bag, outdoor gear, bathing products for the baby, as well as nappies, bedding and a small mattress. With the mattress in the bottom, the box becomes a baby’s first bed. Many children, from all social backgrounds, have their first naps within the safety of the box’s four cardboard walls. Mothers have a choice between taking the box, or a cash grant, currently set at 140 euros, but 95% opt for the box as it’s worth much more. The tradition dates back to 1938. To begin with, the scheme was only available to families on low incomes, but that changed in 1949. “Not only was it offered to all mothers-tobe but new legislation meant in order to get the grant, or maternity box, they had to visit a doctor or municipal pre-natal clinic before their fourth month of pregnancy,” says Heidi Liesivesi, who works at Kela - the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. So the box provided mothers with what they needed to look after their baby, but it also helped steer pregnant women into the arms of the doctors and nurses of Finland’s nascent welfare state.
In the 1930s Finland was a poor country and infant mortality was high - 65 out of 1,000 babies died. But the figures improved rapidly in the decades that followed. Mika Gissler, a professor at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, gives several reasons for this - the maternity box and pre-natal care for all women in the 1940s, followed in the 60s by a national health insurance system and the central hospital network. At 75 years old, the box is now an established part of the Finnish rite of passage towards motherhood, uniting generations of women. Reija Klemetti, a 49-year-old from Helsinki, remembers going to the post office to collect a box for one of her six children. “It was lovely and exciting to get it and somehow the first promise to the baby,” she says. “My mum, friends and relatives were all eager to see what kind of things were inside and what colours they’d chosen for that year.” Her mother-in-law, aged 78, relied heavily on the box when she had the first of her four children in the 60s. At that point she had little idea what she would need, but it was all provided.
More recently, Klemetti’s daughter Solja, aged 23, shared the sense of excitement that her mother had once experienced, when she took possession of the “first substantial thing” prior to the baby itself. She now has two young children. “It’s easy to know what year babies were born in, because the clothing in the box changes a little every year. It’s nice to compare and think, ‘Ah that kid was born in the same year as mine’,” says Titta Vayrynen, a 35-year-old mother with two young boys. For some families, the contents of the box would be unaffordable if they were not free of charge, though for Vayrynen, it was more a question of saving time than money. She was working long hours when pregnant with her first child, and was glad to be spared the effort of comparing prices and going out shopping. “There was a recent report saying that Finnish mums are the happiest in the world, and the box was one thing that came to my mind. We are very well taken care of, even now when some public services have been cut down a little,” she says. Source: Internet
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90 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Saving Quality vs. Preventing Waste The corrugated box manufacturing industry has long been focused onreducing waste as one of the key drivers of efficiencies. Like most box makers, you are probably focused on reducing waste in your facility. However, most people fail to realize the complex interdependent relationships that exist between quality, waste, product price, cost and production volume. What if “increasing” waste built value for your customers or increased your revenue and “decreasing” waste actually increased the cost of the box or even lowered sales? With so much at stake, it pays to take some time to more closely examine the tipping point between quality and waste.
What is Waste Anyway? There are actually two separate types of waste - internal and external. Internal waste is typically what the corrugated box industry refers to as “waste.” Internal waste represents any defective sheet or box that is produced and not shipped to the customer. However, if you don’t catch the defective product and it ends up in the hands of the customer, it is considered external waste. External waste is rarely, if ever, discussed unless brought up by the customer. The cost is only accounted for in the form of credits for defects returned. Some customers do not return many defective
or problem products to the corrugated box maker, resulting in an inefficient and distorted feedback loop.
Misleading Numbers Through our investigations, we have found that the costs tracked for external waste are more often larger than the internal waste figures. Furthermore, customer complaints, credits and feedback are a minority of the actual rate of defective product that customers are receiving. What this means is that some customers are bearing much of the direct costs (downtime, lost productivity, wasted
products) associated with external scrap rates, while box makers are bearing much of the direct costs associated with internal scrap rates. If customer complaints were, in fact, true indicators of the external scrap rates, this model would be useful for making operational decisions. However, discussions with end-users have shown that customers are not complaining about the vast majority of problems. Similarly, many box plants don’t complain about every hiccup in their machines or every minor issue with their paper – that’s the norm and they are used to it. Because this feedback loop is broken, many corrugated box makers have a warped view (literally) of how much scrap they’re actually sending their customers.
Options Two clear options are available to box makers for handling waste. First, do a better job of finding all defects before shipment and remove them from the production stream, increasing internal scrap rate and improving quality. Alternatively, send defects to customers in an effort to reduce internal waste, but increasing external scrap rates and decreasing quality. What are box makers expected to do? Is sacrificing quality worth the savings of reducing internal waste? What impact will this have on your business?
Possible Solution The secret to improving both internal and external waste is not only to identify the defective products and remove them from the production stream, but also to identify the root causes of the scrap production and address them. Investment in quality assurance systems for box inspection, operator training, as well as PM discipline and keeping equipment current can both identify scrap and reduce its root causes.
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If management is committed to solving problems on the floor that are causing waste, not only will less defective product be produced internally (internal waste) but also less defective product will be shipped to customers (external waste). In addition, profits will improve and customer retention will increase, which directly improves the bottom line. Finding the problem quickly through quality assurance devices and not having them occur from the other improvement measures will decrease internal and external scrap rates and improve the ROI performance of the business.
End Result If investment in quality assurance systems, operator training, improvement
in preventative maintenance programs and an upgrade program for production machinery can reduce the internal scrap rate, then the external scrap rate will be significantly reduced. Box makers will improve profits and keep happy customers who shouldn’t need to complain about the products they receive. Why pay the price of the traditional corrugated box manufacturing industry’s approach for quality, counting pennies and losing dollars. Here is the infographic depicting the difference in cost and value from decreasing scrap versus increasing quality: Source: www.valcomelton.com
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94 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
In-Plant Diemaking: Yes or No? At the IADD’s 2001: A Diecutting Odyssey event, we gathered together three industry representatives and asked them that perennial question: Is it better to purchase cutting dies from a commercial diemaker or to produce cutting die tooling within a converting operation? As you might imagine, most people have very strong opinions about this topic, and our panelists were no exception. The session was moderated by Sue Friedman, Editor, packagePRINTING magazine. Joining her were Bill Howell, Dieshop Supervisor, Mod Pak, speaking in favour of going in-house; Carlos Arbelaez, Corporate Die and DiecuttingTechnical Manager, Pactiv, speaking on behalf of using a commercial dieshop; and John Schulte, Director and former CEO of Modernistic, speaking in favour of using a combination of the two approaches. Let’s join them and see what our industry colleagues had to say. [Editor’s note: Comments have been edited because of space constraints.] SUE: Welcome to our panel discussion on the pros and cons of in-plant diemaking. We have three perspectives represented here today, and to get started, I’d like each of our panel members to talk about what factors have led to them adopting their current diemaking arrangement. BILL: As far as coming from an in-house dieshop view, the important question
we ask ourselves is how do we keep the customers happy? We use our quality policy to set standards, and we strive for continuous improvement throughout our operations. An important measurement in meeting the customer’s requirements for us is on time delivery, which we can better control with the diemaking operation inhouse. Now our company tends to have a very high end die shop. You will need some capital for something like we have. We range all the way from in-house CAD. We have a counter-plate machine. We have the LCD Slimline system and we have a waterjet also. And the last thing would be the laser machine. I realize this is quite a bit of capital, but this is something that our company feels is something we can support, as long as we are keeping our customers happy. As far as the pluses of doing this in-house, we have total control of production scheduling; our diecutters are the number one priority for this in-house shop. Our production scheduler has told me that we probably have about 30% of our jobs getting moved up. With the type of tooling that we have, we’re able to support our complete flow through the whole system. The little processing systems that are available now, there’s many of them out there, as you saw throughout the whole week. You don’t have a huge capital; you can start in pieces. When you become profitable, you can
invest in more of these things. You can start from a lower end to a higher end; there are many ranges in there. As far as communication between our diecutters and diemakers, having the shop in-house gives us an advantage. Yes, you can use technology to communicate with an outside shop-you have email; you have faxes; you have the phone. But what do you do when you see something that’s not really stripping too well on the press and then you get to the blanking area and then you have more problems there? You’ll have to run 5,000 an hour. Nobody really wants to run at a speed like that. In our case, that diecutter can come to myself or someone like me and have the problem approached from two views and come up with a final solution that can be taken care of almost immediately. I tend to like that idea. It keeps our workflow going. We don’t have a tendency to stall the gluers and the product gets to our customers on time. JOHN: The reason Modernistic has its own in-house dieshop primarily is to maintain and retain a core competency. In the diecutting area of our business, which represents about half of our revenue, it’s real important that we maintain competency in being able to have the ability to provide a quality tool, on time and right the first time. Because of all the cutting we do in our plant, the only things that make contact with the substrate are the die and the cutting surface; those two things. So it’s very important that we maintain control of that tool.
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96 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
We experienced the same thing in our printing area. We make our own screens. We’re a screenprinting company, as well. I just can’t imagine what it would be like having screens made outside and then trying to control the quality of the output in-house. I’m not saying this because we find that commercial shops are incompetent; they are. I think in the Twin City area where we’re located, we’re fortunate to have many very good commercial dieshops. I would not hesitate to send work to any of them and expect good results from them. But I think it’s important within our organization to protect that core competency. Our dieshop is a profit centre within the company. In other words, it is making money for the company, not just costing us money. At least that’s up to the point where we just invested in an automatic rule bender. We’re a little bit late getting into that, but we have made that move now. The other thing is, it gives us flexibility, and it’s convenient. I realized that two and three day turnaround times are probably a reasonable expectation for a die, but we have many customers who require a faster turnaround than that. Some of the customers are within our own company that required a faster turnaround than that. We’ve got two representatives for our company sitting here, so they know what I’m talking about. But we’re able to respond very quickly to those needs. We also are able to do repairs in-house, or if there are some customer changes, we can make them very quickly and get right on the press without having to maybe break down a press, makeready to accomplish that. We have some cross training within our dieshop. We have probably a couple operators who also are diemakers. The only problem with that is, usually when you’re busy in the cutting department, you’re also busy in the dieshop. So it doesn’t always work out very well, but we do have that luxury. We also cut, because we are a trade dieshop, job shop, we deal with a lot of different substrates. So it isn’t
just boxboard we’re dealing with. We’re dealing sometimes with boxboard; we’re dealing with vinyls and pressure sensitive. We’re dealing with fabrics and all kinds of cardboards and foam cores and so forth. So we have a variety of die construction requirements that vary, and we like to be able to have that.
number of resources available. I have six or seven or eight dieshops around me geographically, whereas I only have four or five guys in the in-house shop. I can get shorter delivery times because I can distribute my workload over more than one set of workers, and they will get the dies out on time.
Also, communication is important. I think the communications between our dieshop and our cutting departments are very, very good. I think we’re learning from each other in that process. I believe that goes on as well, with commercial shops that have a very good, close relationship with their customer base. So we look at it, our dieshop, though it’s in-house, we have three divisions within the company that are customers of the dieshop. That shop needs to satisfy those customers, or they will go outside. So that keeps them up on top.
Technology is changing very quickly and generally commercial dieshops have an edge when it comes to updating their technology. This is their main business, and competition forces them to remain current. I’ve been seeing through my experience, from here to South American dieshops, that in-house dieshops are dying all the time, because the dieshops are finding it hard to find skilled workers. If they don’t have enough work to keep the in-house employees busy, they move them around to other areas, and they lose a little bit of a scale. When they get back to the job, they are not capable of doing right away, what they were doing previously.
About 35–40% of our dieshop sales volume comes from outside of our company. So we were also doing some diemaking for the trade, which I think is important to know what the standards are out there and what the expectations are in the marketplace. CARLOS: Well, that is very important to say, the quality, the delivery time, the importance of having somebody cross to your operation to give you good service. I’m coming from both sides of the fence. I am a manager, and I have a diemaking facility in our plants, and we have a dieshop inhouse; but I also am a manager of outside, commercial diemakers. I understand when you say that the dies that you build are very special, and that you cannot easily have them produced in the commercial dieshops. You feel it’s important for you to continue making these dies, but I don’t understand how you can invest a great amount of money — and these days, where money is so important, where everybody is asking for three years’ return in capital investment — to make only a few dies. I have many points in favour of using a commercial dieshop. First, using commercial dieshops, I have a larger
Another factor is cost. Everyone knows, when you buy material in large quantities, cost goes down. It’s logic. So the materials costs are usually less for a commercial diemaker who is processing larger quantities, and this savings gets transferred to me. And what about errors in dies? If you are an in-house shop and you make one error, you pay for it. From the commercial dieshop, I only receive good dies. A lot depends on the quantity of dies you need. I asked Bill this afternoon, “How many dies do you make a day in-house?” He said, “Between four and five.” Between four and five — that’s very little for an investment of a million dollars to create an in-house shop. Who wants to invest a million and a half dollars, just to make four dies a day? I don’t think many people want to do that. I don’t think that any in-house dieshop can compete with the quality of the commercial dieshops. If a commercial die maker doesn’t give you the quality of dies that you deserve, you go elsewhere. The pressure is there. Cont. on Page 101
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Cont. from Page 97 SUE: You’ve all identified the benefits in each of the arrangements you favour. Could you each identify a drawback inherent in your arrangement? BILL: Well obviously for me, it’s going to be the initial cost, the investment into the equipment itself. Obviously, there are pros and cons to that too. I feel that the cost, in order to appease your customer, it’s not only a monetary value. Some people might want to think that way, but in order to make your customer happy and to keep them happy and keep them coming back to you and keeping you profitable, it’s important to keep this high-end quality in effect, to be able to turn this stuff around; it is most important. I can see where some companies might have difficulty investing in a large amount of money right off the bat. We couldn’t. JOHN: I think one of the challenges for us is that we’re seeing other methods of cutting besides steel rule being introduced into our manufacturing process. Is that going to mean that we’re going to have a decrease in the need for steel cutting dies, or are we going to see a continuing need, increase in the need for steel rule cutting dies? I think that is a valid question, the return on your investment, how fast you’re returning it. The technology is developing very, very fast and we see that at these shows and it’s coming at us very quickly. We each have to assess our needs, how well are we able to adopt into our organizations, the technologies that are available. The marketplace is going to force some of that; our own innovation is going to force some of that, but ultimately, it’s the customer’s requirements that are going to force that to happen. So my concerns are the same as Bill’s, in that regard, as being able to afford the new technology as it is. Fortunately, I think we’re seeing technologies coming at us that are quite affordable. In fact, in some regards, it allows an in-house operation to take hold once again, where maybe it did not pay in the past. In our situation for instance, we have had the in-house capability right from the very beginning. It’s sort of traditional
too. We’ve always had this available to us. So if for some reason the availability wasn’t there anymore, due to fire or disaster or something, and we had to be dependent upon the commercial sources, that might be a real eye opener to us. I think being able to maintain the technology, or keep up with it and to do that cost effectively is a challenge, but it’s probably a challenge for all the commercial shops too. SUE: Have each of you managed that by staggering purchases or how do you handle that? BILL: My company had purchased a laser and a counter cutter at one point and this was to offset what they were getting from an outside, commercial die supplier. They were spending approximately US$ 350,000 a year on dies, with the purchase of these two things. Those two, I believe, came to about US$ 300,000 from the deal that they had done, and our purchases now are about US$ 45,000. So it did not take very long for us to offset that cost. Now the last machine we bought, that’ll take a little while to pay itself back (chuckle). JOHN: One of the things I’ll always talk about is, if you’re not profitable, you can’t take advantage of opportunity when it comes. So the goal is to stay profitable in the operations that you have. It’s not looked upon favourably when money’s being made in one area and it’s being invested in another area that isn’t carrying its weight. That creates attitude problems within the organization. So I think the drive is to maintain profitability, so that when opportunity comes, it justifies investment in upgrading where it’s required or where it’s needed. Some of our problems have come from just dragging our feet. We were late getting into the automatic rule bending. On the other hand, by waiting, we also saw a lot of improvements take place. However, it got to a point where it had to be justified, and that’s when we made it so.
challenges when the commercial dieshop is not well organized, and they need information and you have to make sure you keep updating that information. There can be problems with communications to an outside shop. However, even with in-house dieshops, sometimes I have the same problem. I ask a company, give me this information because I want to make this die for your press; or when we make a die we say this die is to be used in this press, and then you’ll find out that they are using it in another press. When we need something real good and all the specs are there, I don’t see how an inside dieshop can make a better die than the outside. Maybe they can do better in one thing, they can come out and fix it like Bill was saying. But on the other hand I say, how many
problems are you going to accept? A half a dozen is enough to correct the problem. If you don’t correct the problem in a half a dozen times, it’s because something is very wrong and you have to start digging where this mistake occurs. A commercial shop can work it out (on their time) and they can make a perfect die for your needs and time. SUE: Are there any questions at this point?
SUE: Carlos, what about the challenges of going the commercial route?
AUDIENCE: Bill, you’ve stated you do maybe four to six dies a day. Now if you break that down into laser time, you’ve probably got four hours, five hours that you’re utilizing the laser, maybe six, depending on how big the presses are and how many linear inches you have. You have so many diemakers and I don’t know how many you have. Do you service other plants within your company, as well?
CARLOS: I’ve been involved, like I say, in both sides of the thing. Yes, there are some
BILL: We service two other sister companies.
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102 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
AUDIENCE: Sister companies, so what I’m saying is, if you’re only using that machine four to six hours a day, how can you become cost effective? My former company is in-house laser die. We serviced six folding carton plants, and there was still a lot of down time on the machinery, because there was not enough labour, there was not enough work to keep the labour, so they were either sent home or they’re transferred out of the dieshop, into the plant. They were inside the plant and they would do flat packing and of course, gripe and moan about it. So how can you keep a skilled diemaker and try to sell the product at a cost that you can generate a profit at; then in return, be competitive enough that when you’re slow and they’re out in plant and they’re doing other things, that they would want to stay around? I also don’t understand how in-house shops can afford to upgrade the technology. These outside die suppliers, they run their machines 24 x 7. Some are five days a week, but they can keep costs down. There’s competition driving cost down. If a plant is organized enough to order the stuff on time, you can get free shipping. If you have a quality problem with a tool that was manufactured in-house, who eats the cost? Sometimes the managers say, “It’s going to cost our company a lot of money, why don’t you just try to work through it?” So much for quality. I just don’t understand how you can generate a profit and compete against faster lasers, faster technology, keep your people working — I just can’t see it today. BILL: Well that’s a pretty hard question (laughter). We have a cross-training system in our facility, so we don’t have a problem as far as keeping individuals busy. We run our presses 20 hours a day. We run two ten-hour shifts. Our laser is not busy right now, so the operator is also one of our CAD operators. So his day is spent doing the regular die programming and all that. He is also one of the counter plate operators. Then we also have diecutters. Diecutters are cross trained with our pre-press department, and these things go hand-in-
hand, as far as getting ideas together to improve our productivity inside the plant itself. Now what we have done in the past is, the diemakers, the head diemaker, myself, we will see some individuals that we feel, that have the opportunity or the potential to become diemakers and also being the full-time diecutter themselves. With the equipment that we have, the training period is very minimal, because of the systems that we have here. You don’t have to be an expert diemaker in order to make dies anymore, as long as you have at least one knowledgeable person on each shift. This is how we have kept our company in a profitable range. We have very little down time anywhere throughout the plant. I think it’s because of this cross training and the fact that we utilize every person 110%, that it seems to work for us. AUDIENCE: Bill, let me ask you this question. What is the expectancy of the life of a die? How many impressions can you get in the life of a die? Let’s assume five hundred thousand, with 12 to 15 outs outs in an average die. That’s six million impressions or boxes, now divide US$ 400-US$ 500-US$ 600 for tools. I don’t know, $1,400 tools for six million; how much money are you going to save to your company, if that is the amount of money you’re going to save in the production? AUDIENCE: Bill, I know a little bit about your operation. Based on what has been described so far, your operation, the diemaking area is not a profit centre. It’s a cost burden, but your overall company may be very profitable because of efficiencies in other areas, that when you put it all together in one lump sum, you continue to be very, very competitive. But if they were to take your department, isolate it completely, and start making comparisons against Carlos and even John, again, you’ll really see the differences, the positives and the negatives of doing something in-house versus going to commercial vendor. So I guess the point I’m trying to say is, we could talk about how profitable you are in your company, but in reality, what we’re trying
to learn here is, comparing apples with apples. It’s a cost burden for your company and it’s going to continue to be one, until such time you’re utilizing that facility and everybody else continuously, just like a commercial diemaker. It’s worked for your company, so that’s a big plus. AUDIENCE: What value Bill, do you place on product development, and does Mod Pak have an R&D department to develop new, innovative products with regards to diecutting? BILL: Every two months we get our dieshop and diecutters together. We have a gab session to see what things do you see that we can improve on. From these sessions, we’ve come up with some fairly innovative ideas that have made us, become again, more efficient in the diecutting process. Coming to IADD programs allows us to see new things that are out there. I realize that a commercial diemaker will see many, many different types of things, as opposed to someone who’s always in-house and therefore, maybe you are losing something. But we’re trying to get over this by making ourselves more aware to what is out there through conferences and whatever other resources are available to us. AUDIENCE: I have a couple of comments. In the first place, I’d like to say, in general, improvements cost money. When you talk about all the changes in technology, all the new machinery that is available in our industry, isn’t it true that most of these machines would not exist without commercial diemakers? In other words, progress comes always, almost always, 90% or more of the cases, from outside. Another problem with in-house employees is that they tend to agree on a lot of things, because they have all been cross-trained within the same company. They learn together and they agree on a lot of things and that is bad. People that agree on a lot of things, that is very bad for progress. So in other words, these gentlemen here, the commercial diemakers, they are continuously facing the pressure of demands of many different customers, especially to keep costs low. This creates
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 103
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104 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
an environment of creativity, of trying to meet different challenges, which inspires progress. Because progress, most of the time, comes from disagreement. AUDIENCE: I’d like to comment on what was said about progress almost always comes from the commercial dieshops. I can look back and think of Ray Miller [Atlas Die] and his innovations with the laser in the early 70s and how quickly that innovation became widespread. But I think also, the justification for much of that technological innovation was first introduced into companies that didn’t have existing dieshops. Many of those shops incorporated that technology into their organizations, as well. So I think there’s a mix here of where does advancement really come from. I think the marketplace is competitive enough, I think that that type of thing gets forced upon us. We don’t adapt to change or innovate, you head in the other direction. That’s a challenge I think we all face-commercial shops are equally faced with those challenges. They’ve got tremendous amount of investment, not only in equipment, but in training of people and they’re also very beholden upon the marketplace and the success of its customer base. We’re all in it together. AUDIENCE: I faced a situation fairly recently. We were a sole supplier for a converting plant and they decided to start knifing their own dieboards. Then they bought a certain machine, which is fine, and now they’re making their own dies. But, now they’re also calling on my accounts and trying to sell tooling to my accounts. I guess just any comment from Bill, you’ve got all this extra time on your equipment, have you guys thought about pursuing something like that yourselves, and becoming a commercial dieshop? BILL: No. We’re pretty much, we’re happy appeasing ourselves, our own customers right now. As far as, the company that you were speaking of, did they have a dieshop at all, before?
AUDIENCE: No, they just slowly started knifing tooling and then thought, we were burning the boards after they started knifing and then they said, well let’s get this machine and we’ll do that. Then they finally said, well we’ve got to pay for this machine somehow, we can’t quite pay for it by making our own tooling. So they decided to start selling to other converters. BILL: Ouch (audience chuckle). AUDIENCE: There is starting to be a lot of overcapacity now, and it is driving the prices down in diemaking, and that will, in the long term, also mean less money for research, less technology, and all that stuff. It’s quite negative. Talking about diemaking, which is a trade that has been around for many years, it has changed dramatically, and it is almost impossible to find solutions within just one dieshop. It’s become so much more complex. For example, issues like quality, what do we mean by quality? We can discuss for three hours different points of view on what is quality. We can talk about continuity in making the dies and stuff like that, but the priceprofit versus times-technology, delivery, environment issues, holidays problems, sickness, injury, fire, earthquakes, power supply in California, organization, type of rules you use, software. It is difficult enough to keep up with all of these issues, but at least the commercial diemakers are not insulated and have the benefit of much input from all of their customers. BILL: Well, I must admit, the last time we got an earthquake was probably (laughter) a year ago, but, no, I definitely can see the pluses and minuses of both the commercial and an in-house dieshop. As far as going with a commercial only, the fact is that you’re putting an awful lot of trust in these people and they deserve it. These people are experts in it. I also understand that having an in-house dieshop, you know exactly what you’re looking for as far as a die is concerned and you can communicate to these commercial diemakers, also, this information. The fact that in our industry,
turnarounds are extremely quick nowadays and the fact that any downtime is bad. An in-house dieshop can alleviate many of these problems is what I’m thinking. z SUE: Any other closing thoughts? CARLOS: I would just like to say again that the commercial dieshop has a lot more flexibility than anybody. They have a lot more knowledge. They have more freedom to test and do research. They get into many plants, and they work with the manufacturers to improve products. And most importantly, I would just like to ask, why buy a cow, if I can buy milk? (laughter and applause).
This article is reprinted with permission from the International Association of Diecutting and Diemaking’s monthly magazine, The Cutting Edge, August 2001. The IADD is an international trade association serving diecutters, diemakers and industry suppliers worldwide. IADD provides conferences, educational and training programs, a monthly magazine, online resource library of 450+ technical articles, industry experts to answer technical questions, publications and training manuals, recommended specifications, online used equipment marketplace, videos and more. IADD also co-presents Odyssey, a bi-annual trade show and innovative concept in technical training featuring a hands-on Techshop where training programs come alive in an actual working diemaking and diecutting facility inside the exhibit area. Visit www.iadd.org or call 1-815-4557519 for more information.
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Packing Tips for the E-Commerce sector
As traditional manufacturing has declined, packaging material suppliers have seen sales in that sector replaced by E-Commerce businesses distributing goods sold on the internet. There is a surge of small businesses, often working from home or small units. Many of these businesses grow, and expand into larger premises, with busy despatch departments. Whether large or small, most of these businesses use three basic items of packaging - some sort of cardboard box, protective or void filling packaging inside, and tape to seal up the parcel. There is a variety of packaging materials, and using the right product saves packing time, decreases damage in transit, and therefore saves money for your business. Let’s look at each of these three areas.
The first obvious thing is to use the right cardboard box for the job. Cardboard boxes come in two qualities - lightweight and heavyweight.
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Lightweight cardboard boxes are made from one layer of corrugation (the wavy bit in the middle), and are sometimes called ‘single-wall’ for this reason. They come in lots of sizes, but are usually not suitable for heavy items. The exception is with small or medium sizes, when the item being packed is not delicate, and fills out the box completely, such as paper in a traditional A4 sized box. Even in this case, the bottom of the box must be taped strongly. Lightweight cardboard boxes are most useful for garments, linen and other light items. Even then, they can lose their shape easily, making carrying and stacking of boxes more difficult. Lightweight cardboard boxes are often used in multiple quantities within a heavyweight
outer cardboard box. The most useful lightweight cardboard boxes are ‘pizzastyle’ boxes that match the largest sizes that can be posted using the new Royal Mail small parcel pricing category. These are excellent for posting out lightweight goods, whilst not exceeding the small parcel size limits. Heavyweight cardboard boxes are made from two layers of corrugations, and are sometimes called ‘double-wall’. They are by far the best all-round cardboard boxes for sending out goods by post or courier, and can perform all the tasks required of them. They come in a large range of sizes, useful sizes being 12 x 9 x 9”, 12 x 12 x 12”, 18 x 12 x 12”, 18 x 18 x 18”, and 24 x 18 x 18”. (The first two dimensions are the length and width, the last is the depth). Heavyweight cardboard boxes keep their shape in transit, and stack well. They are suitable for china, books, parts and other heavy items. All cardboard boxes can be easily printed with a company logo and contact details. There are a wide range of packaging materials to use within the box, and expert help is always available to make the right choice. There are two uses for internal packaging materials - protection and/or void-filling. The most common protective products are bubble wrap or loose-fill. Bubble wrap is used for wrapping, and is available in small or large bubble size, and various standard widths. Remember to wrap bubble-side downwards. Loosefill is one of the most useful products for protecting delicate items such as china. The key is to put a layer of material in the box first, nestle the item inside, then fill up the Cont. on Page 111
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The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 109
110 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Cont. from Page 107 Finally, there are different tapes that can be used to seal the cardboard box. Standard packing tape comes in either clear or brown, and in a variety of qualities to suit all budgets. Printed tape is affordable, and subject to surprisingly low minimum order quantities. As well as advertising your company, it is useful as an anti-pilferage measure. Anybody can open a cardboard box and replace the standard brown or clear tape. A thief might be deterred from opening a cardboard box sealed with printed tape, as the tape could not be replaced, and the box would appear tampered with.
box round the items, making sure there is a slight overfill at the top. That way, when the flaps are closed, there is no movement in the item, and it is encapsulated in protective material on all sides. Void filling is when you just need to fill up the spaces in the box, and protection is not the priority. There are more choices of material here. Loose-fill can still be used, and flows into all the spaces. Bubble wrap can be rolled into log shapes to fill the gaps. For lightweight use, then white newsprint paper can be ‘scrunched-up’. Cardboard shredders are available, and the resulting material is also useful as void-fill. For larger users, machines that produce air pillows are excellent. The machines can be purchased or rented, and because they use rolls of flat polythene to create the inflated pillows, the saving in storage space for packaging materials is a very attractive benefit. Customers also like the presentation when unpacking, and the lack of mess.
Following these tips and using the best packaging materials for the job, should lead to faster and easier packing, and your items arriving safe and secure. Source: Internet
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Industry News World Demand for Corrugated Boxes to Reach 234 Billion Square Meters in 2017 Aug. 8, 2013 - World demand for corrugated boxes is forecast to increase 4.2 percent per year to 234 billion square meters in 2017, slightly outpacing real (inflation-adjusted) gains in GDP. Factors contributing to rising box demand include growth in industrial activities, particularly the manufacturing sector, which often requires corrugated packaging to protect and transport goods. In addition, ongoing developments in small flute and high-quality graphic board will allow corrugated boxes to penetrate traditional folding carton applications, especially in the developed world. Greater interest in corrugated packaging as a point-of-sale display in retail applications will also boost demand for value-added corrugated boxes. Food and beverages will remain the leading market for corrugated boxes in 2017, accounting for 43 percent of global demand. These and other trends are presented in World Corrugated Boxes, a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Clevelandbased industry market research firm. Gains will be limited by the mature state of the corrugated box industry in developed areas such as the US, Western Europe, and Japan, where boxes are essentially
commodity items used in well-established markets. In addition, corrugated boxes also face competition from reusable plastic shipping crates and other types of plastic packaging. Nonetheless, corrugated boxes will benefit from their environmentally friendly image as they are a renewable resource that can be recycled. In addition, boxes have advantages compared to plastic crates —- especially considering that the usage of plastic crates typically involves cleaning and return costs. The fastest increases in demand for corrugated boxes will occur in developing regions; the Asia/Pacific region and the Africa/Mideast region will both outpace the global average. India and China will see the fastest gains as a result of strong growth in industrial output and consumer product markets. China, which surpassed the US as the world’s largest corrugated box market in 2011, will account for almost half of the increase in global demand over the forecast period. Greater urbanization and industrialization and expanding international trade will support advances in these regions’ generally underdeveloped packaging sectors. Rising consumer income levels and expanding middle classes will also generate robust demand for packaged consumer goods such as processed foods, beverages, and personal care items, supporting increases in corrugated box consumption. © 2013 by The Freedonia Group, Inc.
World Corrugated Boxes (published 07/2013, 348 pages) is available for $6100 from The Freedonia Group, Inc., 767 Beta Drive, Cleveland, OH 44143-2326. For further details visit Fredonia’s website:www.freedonia.com or contact Corinne Gangloff by phone 440.684.9600 or e-mail pr@freedoniagroup.com. SOURCE: The Freedonia Group Inc.
Tetra Pak inaugurates Rs 700-cr plant in Chakan Tetra Pak, one of the world’s leading food processing and packaging solutions company, inaugurated its 45-acre factory at Chakan (near Pune) in last week of May. Tetra Pak already owns a similar plant at Takwe in Pune, and the new plant doubles production capacity of Tetra Pak packaging material to 8.5 billion packages per year, with the potential of scaling it up to 16 billion packages. The plant is designed to meet growing demand for Tetra Pak processing and packaging solutions across India, South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The INR 700-crore facility marks a significant milestone in Tetra Pak’s increasing presence in the Indian subcontinent. An earlier announcement made by Tetra Pak in 2011, had stated that the plant was expected to be operations by Dec 2012. Speaking on the occasion, Kandarp Singh, Managing Director, Tetra Pak South Asia said, “Today’s young urban consumer and the growing middle class are shaping and transforming the Indian food and beverage industry. Being ahead of the curve, Tetra Pak is geared to meet the growing demand for food safety and convenience. Today’s consumer looks for nutritious and healthy products in a convenient packaging format, something that Tetra Pak is well equipped to deliver.”
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The new Tetra Pak plant employs the most advanced packaging material production technologies and equipment in the world. Amongst various other facilities, the new plant will have a straw production unit, a processing systems workshop, a filling machine renovation and a technical training academy. The localisation of these processes will greatly increase responsiveness to market demands. It will also house a product development and innovation centre which will have a laboratory, a pilot processing plant and a pilot packaging plant to meet the product formulations and development needs of customers. It also hopes to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification, reflecting its extremely high standards of energy efficiency, environmental performance and occupant well-being. In addition to this, the plant is also one of the greenest. Tetra Pak is zero discharge unit plant where no waste is discharged in the environment, and also it’s a zero landfill unit. Add to it, plant is self-reliant and uses LNG for its own power generation and consumption. Solar panels are installed for PDIC unit, canteen and office for energy conservation, and battery operated vehicles are used for transportation of goods within the unit.
FEFCO Awarded 6 Corrugated Industry Suppliers at its event held in Copenhagen During the closing of its Technical Seminar, FEFCO (European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers) announced 6 award winners amongst its members who had presented a spotlight. The Sessions, which were better attended than ever, featured 48 seven minute spotlights in two days, generated a high degree of interest. They gave an overview of the latest technological innovations by suppliers to the corrugated industry. At Thursday’s closing ceremony, the members of FEFCO Production Committee awarded prizes for Innovation, Most
inspired new FEFCO member, Safety, and Best Presentation.
Best Innovation: Gold Award: Chimigraf in a joint collaboration with the companies Barberán and Serra for its “Digital printing for corrugated cardboard sheets” and outlined in a spotlight by Eladio Lerga. The award was presented to Cleo Vargas (Chimigraf - digital printing ink), Dennis Van Ijzerloo (Barberán – digital printer) and Ramon Serra (Serra -automatic feeder and stacker). The jury was delighted to see an innovation for digital printing for advanced and high volume driven corrugating plants. Silver Award: OM Partners, for its “Costoptimal Transport Planning, integrated with Production Scheduling” presented by Jan Geuens. The presentation convinced the jury that this innovation can bring real added value and improve the perception of competency of the industry by the customers. Bronze Award: Bahmüller Maschinenbau, for its “Boxflow®Solutions” presented by Ulrich G. Wolz. The Production Committee acknowledged the work done in the field of folding gluing and welcomed new efficient solutions for bundling. Best Presentation: the winner was Marcus Haupt from Göpfert company with his presentation “Ready to rig the roll?” Safety: Anmmeraal Beltech, “Safe walk – with modular belts” won the special Safety award for its development which will improve safety in corrugating plants. Most Inspired new FEFCO member: Valco Melton won the award for their Clear Vision quality control system, which will contribute to the industry’s aim to deliver zero defect boxes.
FEFCO Technical Seminar: record participation with “The Corrugated Board Factory of 2025” 17th edition of the FEFCO Technical Seminar gathered together almost 800
delegates from the corrugated board industry and its suppliers Copenhagen, Denmark on 22-24 October 2013. The attendance showed a remarkable increase (+23 %) and the Seminar has continued to attract corrugated industry managers from all over Europe. This FEFCO event is unique because it offers an exceptional opportunity to network, and to exchange experiences and know-how, so the technical Seminar remains the ideal forum for customers and suppliers of the corrugated Industry. The Exhibition had with 95 booth units. FEFCO offered 6 Spotlights Sessions. Both exhibition and spotlight sessions were very well attended. The Production Committee of FEFCO developed a programme whose objective was to allow delegates to catch up with new developments and to be ready for the future! The theme of the conference was The Corrugated Board Factory of 2025 and it focused on key drivers defined by our members as follows: • Raw Materials, Future Developments and How to Cope with Them • Zero Defect Technology, its Status and Impact on the Industry • Efficiency in Production Key challenges identified during these three days were: • a better use of limited resources, • a constant need for cost reductions, • an increased demand for zero defect quality, • a necessity for more innovation in design and higher quality print, • a trend for less and less human intervention. Some answers and solutions were offered, especially during the sessions jointly presented by the industry and the equipment suppliers, who had on this occasion shown their eagerness to move forward and to make the industry more competitive and innovative than ever. Cont. on Page 119
The Corrugator | October – December 2013 | 115
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118 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
Cont. from Page 115
Sappi Europe to Highlight Trends in Corrugated at FEFCO Technical seminar will review market challenges and present growth opportunities Tackling key market issues such as reduced packaging weight, savings in process costs and food safety as well as showcasing ways to elevate brand perception be the focus of Sappi Europe’s presence at FEFCO’s Technical Seminar, Copenhagen, Denmark on 22 to 24 October 2013. “Corrugated packaging has been experiencing rapid growth for some time,” comments Kerstin Dietze, Marketing Manager Speciality Papers. “This is being driven by a move from brown one colour printed packaging towards an explosion of colours. Now today’s corrugated packaging is virtually indistinguishable from luxury carton folding boxes.” Product developments from Sappi, enabling customers to deliver that allimportant shelf shout and meet increased
demand for high quality printed and finished packaging, are grades with a brighter whiter finish for unprecedented brilliance and saturation. This helps brands ensure considerably enhanced, and accurate, colour reproduction. It also supports advances in multi-colour printing, spot varnish effects, embossing and hot foil stamping. As a result new, creative packaging options have opened up - all suited to all standard finishing techniques. Clever grade choices, such as those that enable light weighting, can also result in savings asbrand owners can cut the amount packaging weight to make cost reductions such as those for transportation and shipping. This can positively contribute to packaging sustainability as well. Another key issue Sappi addressed is food safety as brand owners increasingly come under pressure to deliver low migration materials for increased food security. More substances are being discovered in packaging materials that are hazardous to health and that can migrate from packaging
into food. Sappi’s packaging speciality papers are approved for direct food contact, certified by the ISEGA test institute (industry, research and development company) and the recommendation from the BfR (German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment) as well as the FDA (U.S. Food & Drug Administration). Sappi’s commitment to this is reflected by its collaboration with brand owners, converters and industry partners. This includes co-operation with Henkel and other organisations on low-migration concepts for food packaging made of corrugated cardboard. All these trends have been addressed by Sappi’s development of Fusion®, a high white top liner for corrugated packaging. It also creates added value in the packaging supply chain. Unlike top liners made from recycled fibres, Fusion is a premium white top liner made out of white bleached virgin fibres and designed for lamination onto corrugated board. Source: www.sappi.com
CONGRESS 2013
IndiaCorr Expo:
ICCMA Congress 2013
SinoCorrugated with its launch edition in India - IndiaCorr Expo created a base for the Indian Corrugating Industry. The show in its first edition attended by aprx. 5000 visitors. There were about 125 exhibitors.
A thought - provoking, ICCMA Congress took place on 17-18 October centered on the theme ‘Productivity – The New Mantra’.
The exhibition showcased equipment, solutions and technologies from India, China, Germany, Taiwan, Italy, USA, Sweden and many other countries. IndiaCorr Expo established itself as one of the biggest event for corrugated packaging industry in India and was majorly attended by focused visitors including corrugators, converters, printers and end-users of secondary packaging solutions along with professionals keen in setting up new production lines or facility. The diversity of the sector was noticed in the event through exhibiting companies in Corrugated Board Making Machines, Corrugated Box Making Machines, Web Guiding Systems, Kraft Paper, Testing Equipment, Adhesives, Ancillary Equipment and Software product & solutions category.
The Congress brought industry thought leaders together to discuss the opportunities ahead and how to overcome existing set of challenges. In the 4 power-packed Technical Sessions with 15 eminent speakers and 275+ delegates - the ICCMA Congress, in its debut event, set a significant milestone as the conference dedicated to Corrugated Packaging. Shri. A. B. Ajmera, a veteran of the corrugated packaging industry was felicitated with ‘Life-time Achievement Award’. The Congress Theme – “Productivity – The New Mantra” provided an insight on how to produce more effectively besides giving an opportunity to understand the global trends and future opportunities.
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Product Profile Save money and the environment
existing equipment, but have now started specifying them on their new equipment.
Absolute Engineering has made significant progress installing their unique woven carbon fiber chambers on post printers over the last 12 months.Great Northern Corrugated (GNC) originally installed 3 units on their Ward before proceeding to upgrade their United Flexus.
Absolute chambers can give quantifiable benefits over traditional chambers” Absolute have recently moved to a new factory in order to meet the increasing demand.
Bob Smith of GNC Racine commented “We can now run many of the jobs we used to skip-feed on regular feed. The doctor blade change has gone down from 30 minutes to 5 minutes, and because of the make-up of the chambers, cleanup is now an actual clean-up, the ink slides off with minimal effort ... the crews absolutely love them. I would recommend these chambers with 100% confidence.”
The plant includes test facilities to complete development of a new range of upgrades specifically for Corrugated. These new options will provide even more opportunities to generate cost reductions for any customer using current chamber technology. Chambered doctor blades are now a standard specification item on all post printers.
additional benefits that a well specified chamber system can give over the standard offering, and the subsequent advantage that this can give to the whole business. These advantages can reduce the cost and workload of a whole factory, not just the print unit. After capital costs, salaries and board the most expensive item on a print unit is ink. Most chamber wash up processes are specified to clean the chamber and anilox, and not maximise ink returns at the end of a job On average, 50% of ink purchased is not applied to the board. Environmental regulations will continue to get tougher, leading to more equipment and on-cost to deal with this waste stream. Whilst most production orientated managers would find these points unsurprising, non industry observers would be shocked to learn that the corrugating industry accepts this level of waste. Not only is the cost significant, the environmental implications of this loss of ink are huge.
Absolute have also achieved considerable success with BOBST/Martin upgrades, including NT1628, NT1636 and 924 print units.
Over the last two generations of equipment the industry has evolved from all rubber rollers, to 50/50 rubber roller and reverse angle blade, to 100% chambers.
Rick Young, Absolute’s agent in North Central USA, is delighted with the momentum generated. “We have several customers who originally upgraded just
The driver for this has always been print quality, and this remains the overriding, obvious improvement. However, as chamber systems improve further, the industry have begun to appreciate the
As a provider of Carbon Fibre Chambers to the Corrugated Industry, Absolute is constantly being requested to upgrade and improve our product to address developing market requirements. SCA is one of the biggest corrugators in Europe, and as a major customer of Absolute, we are working with them to significantly reduce the amount of ink lost during wash up. This co-operation will improve environmental performance whilst also reducing ink costs and the subsequent costs of the waste stream. The 50% loss in ink is significant, but this is merely the initial cost. A large proportion of this ink is in waste water, and in order
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to dispose of this, the majority of plants have ink cleaning (or flocculation) plants. The cost of an average flocculation plant including maintenance and depreciation is between 50,000 and 75,000 per annum. Ongoing costs for the chemicals to clean the ink are approximately 1.50 per kilo. Once this is all completed, the residual “inert crumb” generally goes to landfill. This would notionally cost a plant 10,000 per year.
Advanced Knife Technology for Upper Slot Knives
It is clear that these additional costs not only reduce the profit of a plant significantly, but they also lead to bigger ink stores, bigger flocculation plants (as more ink waste must be cleaned) and this inevitably leads to higher maintenance of all the equipment required to ensure that these actions and processes are correctly carried out.
The Company’s patented ‘Wave’ profile gives a sharp reciprocating cutting edge without “sawing”, and in addition are claimed to be easier to handle.
Mansfield Board Machinery Ltd. Of England advanced Knife technology for Upper Slot Knives
Clean Cut Slots Clean Sharp cutting action from patented ‘Wave’ profile.
Low Dust Generation
The new MFA-ERGOSATM UNIVERSAL PACKER is the suitable solution for foldergluer lines that have a mix product of autobottom and other carton types. The solution combines the flexibility of the ErgosaTM Universal Packer, the ergonomics of the Perpack Perpendicular Packing attachment and the speed performance of the MFA2 Auto Bottom Batch Inverter Module. Contact IMPACKTM for an evaluation of your cartons.
The New 3In1 Carton Turner IN-3 ONE MACHINE - 3 CONFIGURATIONS NO NEED TO MOVE YOUR PACKERS
All ink loss is not generated by wash up on chambers, and therefore chambers cannot be the only answer, however it is a good target as it is easy and relatively straightforward to quantify the potential savings. The difference between the two ink weights is the average ink lost during a typical changeover. By following the test procedure and sharing your results with your colleagues, you will be able to draw your colleague’s attention to the opportunities that this situation presents. This increased focus has the potential to generate a significant improvement in the on-costs of your whole plant by focussing on one area, and will make it much easier to provide a logical and proven justification to by improving your current ink applicator set-up, it can prove to.
Long Life The absence of pointed serrations means the cutting edge is stronger and withstands wearing forces longer, while also reducing lower slot knife wear.
The New MFA - Ergosatm Universal Packer VERSATILE AND PRODUCTIVE SOLUTION FOR AUTO BOTTOM - STRAIGHT LINE - 4 6 CORNERS
The new IN-3 Carton Turner rotates all types of shingled cartons 900 to the left or right depending on desired packing specifications. It also allows for the straight-line processing of 4/6 corner boxes and the like without having to move the unit. The N-3 remains stationary, and does not require the packer to be moved when the carton-turner direction changes configuration. The IN-3 Carton Turner can be used inline with all IMPACKTM packing systems and other carton packers.
In the competitive environment in which we all operate, it is useful to look at the problem from the consumers’ perspective. If the solution our industry provides. Be environmentally better as well as reducing costs. www.absolute-eng.com
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Leading Edge Corrugated Cardboard Manufacturing Solutions to Be Showcased at SinoCorrugated South 2014 The most prominent event in AsiaPacific’s corrugated manufacturing industry, SinoCorrugated South 2014, will kick off next April 10 at Guangdong Modern International Exhibition Center. The show is set to be held along with SinoFoldingCarton, China’s leading showcase for innovative post-print solutions. The value of participating in SinoCorrugated South next year will be immense. Because of the show’s key focus on the corrugated packaging market and its supreme effectiveness in bringing together industry leaders with equipment and consumables suppliers, agencies and manufacturers of corrugated cardboard, it stands head and shoulders above others as the preferred biennial showpiece for AsiaPacific’s corrugated manufacturing trade. Across an exhibition area of 55,000 sqm, over 600 exhibitors will display their newest manufacturing and processing solutions to 26,000 local and international visitors. SinoCorrugated South 2014 also promises to be highly effective in boosting trade across the entire international corrugated board manufacturing industry. The organizers are looking forward to welcoming powerful buyer delegations from the fastest developing markets in AsiaPacific. These will include groups from India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Burma, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. By assembling buyers from rapidly developing markets, SinoCorrugated South sets itself apart as the best place for ambitious businesses keen to boost their share of the regional market. Exhibitors can expect to come face-toface with an even greater number of high quality visitors in the coming year as visitor numbers for SinoCorrugated South 2014 are set to top those for the 2012 edition by
20%. In 2012, 35% of visitors were at Vice President level or higher. A further 20% were Purchasing Managers. In addition to these figures, approximately 25% of visitors to SinoCorrugated South 2012 represented companies with a production output value exceeding RMB 100 million (USD 16.3 million). Over the years, SinoCorrugated South has built a strong reputation as the preferred platform via which to unveil the latest manufacturing and processing solutions; attract new customers; secure fresh orders; seek business opportunities and improve brand image. More than that, exhibiting for just three days at the South China show delivers a promotional effect that lasts an entire year. Reed Exhibitions, organizers of the show, have created, through SinoCorrugated South, a powerful blend of exhibition platform and marketing engine that helps exhibitors to comprehensively accelerate development through higher sales and year-round customer interest. For SinoCorrugated South 2014, Reed will regularly distribute exhibitor details to local and international corrugated case producers and trading companies, as a way of maximizing the promotion of their brands and magnifying the benefits of their taking part. The success of SinoCorrugated South 2012 drew widespread acclaim from local and international exhibitors alike. “The packaging method our company is promoting is relatively new to China’s corrugated industry. This is why we chose this show as the best channel through which to publicize it”, said ITW Haloila’s Export Manager, Hannu Anttila. “We are pleased to report that we welcomed several visitors with high purchasing intent at our booth and are in ongoing discussions with them today.”
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Andreas Kaiser, General Manager of Mosca Direct (Shanghai) declared himself “really satisfied” with the results of exhibiting at SinoCorrugated South 2012, due to the number and quality of visitors. Mr. Kaiser added, “It’s interesting to see visitors from developing countries like the Middle Eastern nations and India, as well as from Australia. We already have a lot of contacts and the show was a good chance for us to increase awareness of our company in China. We’ll definitely come again next time because this is really one of the highest profile Chinese exhibitions to deliver access to key emerging markets like India, Taiwan and South America.” A high value, record-breaking event, SinoCorrugated South 2012 attracted 20,853 visitors (28% more than in 2010), of whom 1,386 were international (24% higher than in 2010). Feedback from participants was significantly positive as 96% of visitors declared themselves satisfied with the overall effect of the 2012 show. On the exhibitor side, satisfaction with the show’s effect was even higher: 98%. The same post-show survey, conducted by Reed Exhibitions, showed that 88% of visitors intend to attend the show again. Based on the tremendous achievements of the most recent SinoCorrugated South event and the significant development potential still inherent in the global corrugated cardboard manufacturing trade, confidence is high that the 2014 show will be a powerful, highly effective commercial platform for exhibitors, visitors and buyers – boosting international trade, enhancing cross-border communication and driving sustainable development. For more information, please visit the official SinoCorrugated South 2014 website: www.sino-corrugated.com.
Forthcoming Events 16-18 January 2014
INDPACK 2014 to showcase state-of-the-art packaging technology After the overwhelming success of recent two editions of INDPACK held at Hyderabad & Guwahati respectively, the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP), premier institute in the country and an autonomous body working under Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India will be organising its 16th edition of national packaging exhibition & conference “INDPACK 2014” from January 16-18, 2014. This three-day mega event will be held at the Hall no. 7, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
8-14 May, 2014
August 23 - 26, 2014
Interpack, Dusseldorf, Germany As the world’s leading trade fair, it is the major inspiration for the packaging industry and all related process technologies. 2,700 exhibitors from more than 60 countries will present their latest ideas, innovate concepts and technological visions at interpack - not only in equipment and machinery for packaging and processing, but also in production tools for packaging materials, materials themselves, and services for the entire industry.
India International Printing & Packaging Fair IIPPF 2014 offers an opportunity of showcasing latest innovations, designs and products, and exchange of technological know-how to both buyers and sellers of printing, packaging and converting equipments. IIPPF has been designed as an international event to meet the aspiration of industry professionals in this sector from all over the world. Hall 18 Ground Floor, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi (INDIA) For more details : www.iippf.com
For more details : www.iip-in.com 11-14 June 2014
2-5 November 2014
10-12 April 2014
Packplus 2014 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi (INDIA) The Total Packaging, Processing and Supply Chain Event SinoCorrugated South 2014 is AsiaPacific’s leading trade show for the global corrugated manufacturing industry. The event features the latest, most innovative corrugated equipment and consumables on the market. GD Modern International Exhibition Center, Dongguan, China More details: www.sino-corrugated.com
Print-Packaging.com is the portal for the Indian printing, packaging and signage industries. Over the years, the portal has been working closely with event organisers and trade association in disseminating information.
PACK EXPO International November 2-5, 2014 - Chicago, USA Encounter Innovations for Every Processing or Packaging Challenge When you need to meet efficiency benchmarks, roll out a new product, automate or streamline your operations, there’s only one place you need to go for the solutions to get it done: PACK EXPO International 2014.
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Asia-Pacific's Leading Corrugated Manufacturing Show
2014 Sino Corrugated South
Asia-Pacific's Leading Platform for Innovative Post-Print Solutions
2014 SinoFolding Carton
Organiser
April 10~12, 2014 GD Modern International Exhibition Center, Dongguan, China tel +65 6780 4601 www.sino-corrugated.com
fax +65 6588 3735 www.sino-foldingcarton.com
128 | The Corrugator | October – December 2013
radiah.amran@reedexpo.com.sg