Graffica will install a 'game-changing' corrugated box maker at a Sydney packaging plant in May. The BCS Autobox is capable of producing short runs of fully formed and digitally printed corrugated boxes with only 60 seconds of setup time.
The Autobox is aimed at the just-in-time, on-demand market, which Neil Southerington, director of Graffica, said is a growing space. "This is a game-changer – if today I were to call up a big company and ask for 50 boxes, they’d probably laugh at me. Traditional machinery isn’t really suitable to do such small runs, and that’s the area in which we excel, doing multiple jobs per day," he said.
With no formes or plates needed, costs and setup times are kept to a minimum - everything is controlled through a single touchscreen, including dimensions and style of box. This makes it ideal for performing multiple short-run jobs in a day, which is not practical for larger machines, says Southerington. "Typically the run lengths would be below 3000. A lot of customers only use 5000 boxes in a year, and printers with this machine can fulfill their needs by delivering only the boxes they need every week," he said. "The setup time here would typically be 60 seconds from job to job, where a big machine could take half an hour."
The Autobox is aimed both at printers looking to expand into the short-run packaging market, and businesses who want to make their own packaging in-house. The Sydney customer, who cannot yet be named, will use the machine to produce custom boxes for other businesses. "These could well be a good investment for commercial printers wanting to get into the packaging space," said Southerington.