Get ready for a seismic shift to folding carton digital production

By Jochen Sproll, Strategy and Business Development Manager, Koenig & Bauer Durst

Packaging, digitalization and sustainability are always key topics in discussions regarding future market requirements.

Taking food, beverages, pharmaceuticals and security markets as examples, we have looked extensively at the challenges customers face in an ever-changing world.

Whether it’s increases in e-commerce, resource efficiency, rising costs for energy and wages or traceability, customization and versioning, or workflow and process automization, there’s an unstoppable shift towards digital production.

It’s like the sound of thundering hooves as we gallop into new ways of developing innovative technology for our customers to meet future-orientated production concepts in packaging.

And now as we head to the tipping point towards large-scale digital production in folding carton markets, we wanted to share the results of a case study we commissioned that highlighted the incredible sustainability credentials of our VariJET 106 single-pass press that uses food-safe, water-based inks.

For this report, the typical annual production of a packaging folding carton converter was analysed. We compared printing it on the  VariJET in comparison to producing on a modern offset press. The basic input parameters of the production scenario that formed the basis for our case study were:

• 2 shift operation with an output of 14m sheets per year.
• Average run length/job: 3,500 sheets leading to 35,000 boxes
• Number of jobs per year: 3,900 jobs

What really surprised us, as a team, was that the VariJET 106 has significant sustainability advantages compared to conventional offset.

Thinking of two major aspects alone – make ready waste and printing plates, as well as the processes and consumables associated with plates – our research found that the VariJET saves about 170 tons of paper and 14 tons of aluminium a year.

Another important sustainability pillar is CO₂ emissions. Aluminium, which is very energy-intensive to produce, is required for printing plates.

Our research showed that with the VariJET 106 it is possible to prevent 125 tons of CO₂ emissions compared to offset by having less make ready waste and by avoiding printing plates (assumption 5 colour jobs). Our VariJET – developed using market-proven technology from Durst and Koenig & Bauer – supports customer to reach their sustainability targets.

This industrial press that is designed to run three shifts in a regular production environment for short and medium runs in folding cartons had its formal public unveiling at drupa where we also announced SCHELLING AG as one of our beta customers.  We continue to be delighted with our progress.We do understand that there is no single answer on how to solve sustainability in the packaging industry. Detailed arguments over which technology is better or worse can only be made when production data and customer orders are compared. The use of input data for the model must be transparent and assumptions openly shared.

We are sure that our VariJET 106 has economic and ecological benefits. If you are looking for a sustainable solution for your short to medium run folding carton business, we are here for you.

Talk to us about your production requirements.