The next stage to Heidelberg’s introduction of its flexo carton press, the Boardmaster, has been to show production directors from carton converters what the press is capable of. That includes doubling of output compared to anything else on the market for high volume packaging says Heidelberg.
It showed the press in action to 100 production leaders, running a demonstration with three jobs with two flying job changes. It has also been active in running sample jobs for customers enabling them to compare output from the Boardmaster with their existing production process. Heidelberg’s head of packaging Christian Steinmaßl says that more in-depth conversations about specific press configurations are underway. “The demonstrations went to our complete satisfaction,” he says.
They needed to. As Steinmaßl points out, Heidelberg needs to tap new and growing markets in order to expand as a business. Packaging is one of these sectors.
Packaging print is therefore an important strategic growth area for Heidelberg. The sector already generates more than 50% of its sales, justifying a continued investment in its sheetfed technology, the Gallus label press and now the Boardmaster to tackle high volume carton print.
The global market for folding cartons is growing. Folding carton production is estimated to grow from €68 billion today to €76 billion by 2027. This corresponds to growth of 2.3% per year, with flexo print growing faster than that. According to research from the likes of Pira, RISI and S&P Global Insight, flexo’s share was 13.7% on 2010 and will reach 15.2% of a much bigger market by 2027.
This underpins the development of the Boardmaster. It was unveiled at Interpack in May having been developed at the Heidelberg Web Carton Converting operation in Weiden, a couple of hundred kilometres from Heidelberg. It created more than a little interest. Managing director Matthias Boog says: “The first systems are already producing in the US. We have further orders from Asia and Africa, and we are receiving inquiries from all regions of the world.” This includes from groups that have produced packaging for food and beverages in large-format offset, says Boog. Heidelberg is no longer involved in the VLF offset market.
Heidelberg says it took the macro studies combined with in-depth work with 25 leading packaging suppliers to identify the four trends which underpin the development of the new press: a need for productivity to ease cost pressure, quality and operational reliability, sustainability and security in the investment.
It addresses the productivity question with the ability to handle flying job changes through a twin plate print unit. One can be dropped into pressure while the other is made ready ahead of the next job change. It reckons that an OEE of 90% is possible compared to an availability of 45% on comparable presses that packing printers are already using. The press is also designed with ease of maintenance in mind, consequently cutting costs by 50% it says.
Plate technology has improved thanks to direct imaging and different polymers and development of flat topped dot structures. Heidelberg has added a quality assurance system called Intellimatch. This is based on high quality cameras to analyse the surface of the plate and to transfer this data to the print unit. This includes the identity of the plate, the colour profile and information about pressure carried in a data matrix code. This is read by the print unit to bring set up to a minimum. A feed back loop introduces a machine learning algorithm to improve the process over time.
In turn this reduces the amount of waste between job changes, improving an already strong sustainability story because this is printing on board rather than a plastic film. At full speed of 600m/minute, the flying plate change leaves 10 metres of waste per changeover. The press is designed to work with waster based inks, with UV or a hybrid configuration as options. This opens the way to food packaging as well as improving the recyclability profile of each box.
Folding cartons, along with aceptic cartons for drinks, will be the first target. Heidelberg believes there is also opportunity for printing paper wraps and for printing corrugated for display graphics, though this group has considerable choice already. It demonstrates the ambitions that Heidelberg has however. For the last half century, offset litho has dominated its thinking. Now it quotes the head of a German flexo print body saying: “A major strength of flexo printing is the environmentally friendly use of resources. Thanks to a comparatively thin ink application, this printing process supports the efforts of packaging printers to minimise their impact on the environment.”
With a crop of inquiries about the Boardmaster to plough through in the next few months, the shift for Heidelberg looks set to pay off.
