Simply Cartons opts for world makeready champion again

Simply Cartons, the Nottingham-based producers of luxury packaging have followed up their investment in a unique, highly specified Rapida 106 in August 2015 with a second order for another 20,000sph Rapida 106 equipped for conventional and UV printing placed at Drupa 2016.

The new press, a six colour with a double coating facility, which, like its sister press is bristling with automation features will be installed in early 2017. These include KBA's DriveTronic SIS sidelay-free infeed, DriveTronic SPC simultaneous plate changing and CleanTronic SRW simultaneous roller washing. The press also includes an extensive non-stop and logistics system and it is raised on a 900mm plinth to assist in producing large volumes of very heavy folding carton materials at its maximum 20,000sph speed without stopping. For inline colour control and inspection, the Rapida 106 is equipped with QualiTronic Professional. The new Rapida 106 presses replace presses from other manufacturers, thus making the 120 employee Simply Cartons an all KBA site.

The decision to purchase the second press was based upon the performance and quality of the first KBA press, a seven colour with double coating version, with an additional special print unit before the last coating tower (installed in February 2016). Simply Cartons CEO Craig Mather explains: "We are a highly service-driven business and our customers expect us to provide them with innovative solutions for their products. We have always had a reputation for using our skills and experience in finding new solutions for our customers. Therefore, we need to work with a supplier which has a similar pedigree to ours. The synergies between Simply Cartons and KBA in the areas of R&D, innovation, and most importantly, the value placed upon people are clearly apparent. We now have the ability to produce up to 40,000 B1 sheets per hour with multiple coating applications. This firepower will give our customers the confidence that we can fulfil varying volume of work without any worry of capacity."

Simply Cartons have several accreditations relating to the environment, food production, Health and Safety and pharmaceutical production, such as ISO 14001, FSC, PEFC, BRC grade A, and PS9000. The new press will assist in maintaining these having a number of compliant features such as being supplied with low migration oils and greases, low IPA package and KBA's VariDryBLUE drying system in the delivery which employs recycled air from the drying process and reduces energy consumption by 33%.

Chris Scully KBA (UK) sales director stated: "We applaud Simply Cartons for their decision to purchase a second Drupa specification Rapida 106. With their two investments in 2015 and 2016 they are now clearly at the forefront of the technology race, which will put them ahead of the competition in the field of luxury packaging producers."