In 2017, it will be seventy-five years since BOBST started designing and producing folder-gluer machines for the packaging industry. 

One of the very first such machines, a PCR382, was set up in 1942 at the Zeiler company near Bern, Switzerland. This same company, which under its current name, Limmatdruck Zeiler, is now an extremely successful part of one of Europe's leading manufacturers of folding boxes — the RLC Packaging Group — is, to this day, still a BOBST client.

What began in 1942 is very much a success story. Thanks to their reputation for consistently high box quality and outstanding performance, BOBST folder-gluers have imposed themselves as the benchmark for the folding carton and corrugated packaging industries. And today’s client can purchase complete folding-gluing lines. They combine highly configurable machines with top-of-the-range peripherals to provide integrated and automated solutions for anything the customer might need.

BOBST has consistently invested around 6% of its annual turnover into research and development. This has allowed the company to develop innovative new systems, equipment and processes — many of which are still patented and unique to the sector. For all of those 75 years, BOBST folder-gluers have continually evolved through the roll-out of ground-breaking new technologies such as, the blank aligner, the crash-lock module, four-corner box folding systems, the flipper-ejector, as well as GYROBOX for the production of complex boxes in a single run, Braille embossing and zero-fault quality checks, in-line and at full running speed. 

Philippe Milliet, Head of Business Unit Sheet-fed, explains, “The success of our folder-gluer equipment over the past seventy-five years is the proof that passion and innovation are part of our DNA. Over the years, customers have demanded equipment that runs faster and faster, is more and more efficient, and can deliver boxes that meet increasingly stringent quality requirements across a whole range of packaging markets. We are continually developing the sophisticated materials and technologies that allow us to deliver all this, while maintaining the same reliability and longevity as those very first machines.” It is this ability to respond to client needs through constant innovation that has earned BOBST its dominant position in the folder-gluer market, such as the sector of e-commerce.

Today, BOBST folder-gluers are sold worldwide, often locally produced for different markets. BOBST understands, however, that technology alone is never enough, so the company — now present in fifty countries around the world — also invests generously in local services.