Heripack produces individual and tailor-made solution concepts for final packaging and palletising. From semi-automatic carton erectors to fully automatic solutions, the company helps customers take control of the packaging process. Hannah Barnett learnt more from Deputy Sales Manager Lars Wiesehöfer.
ATHeripack, each machine is individually tailored to a customer’s needs. The company is a self-styled ‘productivity partner’ – but what exactly does that mean?
“We focus not only building a machine, but giving our customers value in productivity, allowing them to get to the next level in
terms of end-of-line packaging,” explained Lars Wiesehöfer, Deputy Sales Manager. “Our products are not merely a single machine standing somewhere in the corner of a factory to produce cartons and boxes. Rather, they are the whole line of packaging, with some connection points to the assembling processes. This is how we improve the productivity of our partners and customers.”
Excellence and experience
Heripack is a true specialist in packaging machinery. From its HQ in Meschede, in the Midwest of Germany, the company manufactures semi-automatic high-performance packaging systems and fully automatic solutions for final packaging and palletising.
With over 45 years in the industry, the company has decades of experience to fall back on, alongside in-depth expertise, a coterie of skilled employees and access to the latest technology. Heripack started out as a machine builder and grew from that to become the full plant builder it is today. The company
now has a turnover of approximately €9.5 million.
The company is confident that a focus on productivity benefits the workforce of its customers too. “Our automated machinery avoids the very repetitive work of taking something and putting it into a box over and over,” Mr Wiesehöfer explained. “We help staff to get higher value from their work. They become machine operators, so they’re responsible for making the machine run as smoothly as possible. And they are proud of what they do. This is a very nice element of what we do for our customers.”
Since 2009, Heripack has been a subsidiary of Mohrbach, a specialist in the high-performance area of primary and secondary packaging for cartons. The other company in the group is Rasch, based in Cologne. Being part of this collective has proven beneficial for Heripack.
“We share some manufacturing expertise,” said Mr Wiesehöfer. “For example, we do some of our turning and milling processes in Cologne, and we are responsible for processing a lot of the sheet metal work at our site. We have approximately 50 employees here, but in total there are around 200 in the group.”
Smart is sustainable
The company has been implementing sustainable practices for longer than most. It has been carbon neutral for four years and installed extensive PV panels on the roof of its site. Heripack also makes smart choices in the way it operates, and this contributes to a lower carbon footprint.
“We try to produce as much in-house as possible,” said Mr Wiesehöfer. “This gives us flexibility and some other positive aspects including a reduction of carbon footprint and more control with lead times.”
The company will be displaying its newest and most innovative product, the HVR500 at FACHPACK in September. The volume-reducing machine is able to fit a box height to match the product within it.
A sensor detects the maximum height of the contents of the incoming box. The side corners of the box are cut using a low wear cutting process, then the folding edges for the tabs are embossed.
To achieve the reduced, optimal height the tabs are folded in, the lid is automatically folded at the edges and securely glued to the box with hot glue.
This avoids empty space in the packaging and allows more boxes to be transported per pallet or trolley. “It is designed to prevent those occasions when a delivery in a big box has something like just one pencil inside, which anyone may recognise from private experience with E-commerce,” Mr Wiesehöfer explained. “This product reduces the volume of carton boxes. It is something which, especially because of government regulations, has becomes ever more interesting and
important. We are looking forward to presenting this solution at FACHPACK.”
Indeed, exhibitions like FACHPACK also provide a useful window for customers to have a tactile experience with a product. In turn, this allows Heripack to showcase the high quality of its offering.
“The customer can get a feeling of the machine,” said Mr Wiesehöfer. “They can try to package something they like and understand how it works. This sort of thing validates the fact that we are not the cheapest on the market, because we are more focused on quality.”
Alliances for the ages
Heripack is focused on partnerships and only works with companies with which it has shared values. Flexibility is a vital quality when forming a relationship with a supplier, according to Mr Wiesehöfer,
because it enables Heripack to pass this flexibility on to its own customers.
“We really like it if we can go to a supplier and say: ‘we need this as quickly as possible’ and they have something on stock and can deliver it directly,” he said. “This is very important for us.
“Some of the bigger suppliers we work with, like Festo, SMC, Robatech and so on, are very close to us and they visit quite often to look at our machines, see what we are building and what new things we have on the market. They then offer some solutions so that we have a portfolio of components we can offer to our customers.
“And we often have customers who need a specific component in their machines. They may say they can only use Festo, so we make it fit to Festo components. Or maybe another customer can only use SMC. So, we make that happen. This is where we offer a benefit, in terms of flexibility, and is what our
customers really like about doing a project with us.”
As Heripack progresses forward, the sky’s the limit for what this innovative and dynamic company might achieve next. What seems certain, is that Heripack will remain focused on its mission to improve efficiency for its customers.
“We continue to see ourselves as a productivity partner,” Mr Wiesehöfer concluded. “Ultimately, we want to improve the productivity of our customers via our machines. We already have a very good service, but we are in the process of making that even better using augmented reality and artificial intelligence. This will offer our customers many more options to get in touch with us.
“These upgrades show us being proactive and offering a better service before the machine gets into any trouble, or in the worst-case scenario, has to shut down. This is the most important thing for our customers and leads us in the direction to become even better.”
n
