Meeting with Hendrik Schumacher (right) and Volker Claus, Sales Manager Bobst Meerbusch (left)

Mex, Switzerland—Schumacher Packaging produces a wide range of corrugated and solid board packaging for customers all over the industry. The German company uses the e-commerce version of the BOBST EXPERTFOLD 110 folder-gluer to produce shipping packaging that covers market requirements across Europe.

Schumacher Packaging Group was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Ebersdorf, Germany. The company is one of the largest European manufacturers of custom-made corrugated and solid board packaging. Hendrik and Björn Schumacher are the third generation to run this family business, which has a total of 29 production facilities in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.

The company has recently installed two EXPERTFOLD 110 e-commerce versions in each of their production plants in Hauenstein and Schwarzenberg. “These folder-gluers are extremely flexible, high-performance machines operating in three shifts, 24 hours a day, five days a week. With our EXPERTFOLD 110 folder-gluers, it’s easy to switch between solid and corrugated board. For us, this sets BOBST machines apart from the competition,” explains Hendrik Schumacher, Managing Partner of Schumacher Packaging GmbH.

The e-commerce version has two features that distinguish it from the standard edition. Firstly, it has a GYROBOX module which can rotate blanks up to 1800 in any direction between two folding operations. Secondly, the distance travelled by the boxes from the gluing station to the delivery is longer. This ensures that the glue has time to set, even at high machine speeds. The resulting bonds are guaranteed to give the blanks the necessary stability.

GYROBOX improves reliability

“For the past few years, the demand for packaging which requires a 900 rotation during the folding-gluing process has been growing. That is why we decided to switch to the BOBST GYROBOX system four years ago,” says Schumacher.

Previously, the blanks hit a stop bar before being rotated. However, this standard approach had a serious disadvantage: the faster the machines run, the harder the blanks hit the mechanical stop. “The lighter the material and the faster the speed, the more unreliable the mechanical process became”, reports Schumacher.

GYROBOX, on the other hand, rotates the blank with absolute precision without stopping the box flow. Schumacher: “The BOBST rotating module ensures a steady box stream movement throughout the machine. The result is a more controlled folding-gluing process, less prone to disruption. That’s why we can run our machines at faster speeds, enabling much higher productivity. It also means that we are less dependent on the substrate grammages and the stiffness of the blanks.”

Productivity virtually doubled

Another plus is that the machines, including the GYROBOX, can be set up very quickly. “It only takes a few minutes. After a changeover, the quality stays just as high – whether it’s solid board or corrugated board packaging,” says Schumacher, describing the process continuity.

Once the machine is set up, the company quickly gets another sellable job out of the machine. For a converter active in both industries, this represents a considerable advantage. The EXPERTFOLD 110 machines produce a wide range of production runs at competitive prices. Starting with quantities of about 3,000 boxes, there is virtually no upper limit.

Schumacher explains how the productivity almost doubled: “When the blanks had to be rotated during the folding-gluing process, we managed to produce up to 120,000 boxes per shift. With the new machines, the net production is about 200,000 boxes per shift.”

Also, the longer distance between the gluing and packing process allows the machine to run faster while making packing the boxes less stressful. “It’s the same for the folding process: the longer the folding distance, the more time the machines have to fold the flaps of the boxes.” This improves the quality of the final product.

Flexible and sustainable

The company uses the e-commerce versions of the EXPERTFOLD 110 to make solid board shipping envelopes, corrugated board shipping containers and three-point glued packaging variants. “We can produce complex packaging with specialized gluing and standard boxes with base, cover and auto-adhesive tapes. This makes life easier for our customers, because there’s no need to use adhesive tape to seal the boxes. And simple handling of the packaging is essential for them.”

Producing high-performance packaging in a single machine pass and doubling the folding-gluing line productivity both reduce the energy consumption per box. Additionally, waste has been reduced by 50%. Overall, the production process and the individual packaging have become more sustainable.

“Our machine operators can easily get maximum availability out of the EXPERTFOLD 110. BOBST technology is mature and robust. We’ve really put it to the test, but it has never let us down” concludes Hendrik Schumacher.