BPIF Carton Members Tour Of KBA In Germany

Delegates from the British Printing Industries Federation joined industry suppliers for two days at KBA's Dresden facility in Germany) for a carton packaging and point of sale (POS) workshop.

The British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF) said that almost 100 people at the event were shown new developments at the workshop.

The visitors were all members of the BPIF cartons division, whose firms employ more 2,300 people.

Sponsors of the event were the hosts, KBA, together with Sun Chemical, Bobst, Kodak, Robert Horne Group, Watt Gilchrist and Merck who all demonstrated how they are pushing technical barriers to offer innovative new effects to help carton producers.

Amongst the systems being demonstrated were total sheet control on large-format presses for all substrates ranging from 40gsm up to 1.6mm corrugated, as well as visitors being shown how to print on 'environmentally friendly' polypropylene, a substrate that is 35 per cent lighter than other plastics, said BPIF.

Also demonstrated was FM6, a six-colour application that avoids using special inks and a new range of inks and coatings for plastics, which are particularly beneficial for scratch resistance and keying to the materials, together with low migration UV inks for food packaging and pearlescent reticulation on a single coater.

Mike Hopkins, director of strategy, BPIF, said: "This was a first event of its kind for BPIF Cartons and what made it for our members was bringing suppliers together in one place at the same time.

This enabled us to look at developments in the industry, which avoids people having to go hunting around for them separately.

He continued: "It's inevitably a tough task to surprise everyone with something that is totally new.

Overall, it has it has given us an extremely useful insight in to innovations, or what is around the corner for new developments, for the carton manufacturing and point of sale sectors.

Fellow delegate Stuart Goode, strategy director at Nampak Europe, added: "The biggest change I have noticed since last in Radebeul 22 years ago is the level of activity in the assembly hall.

KBA has added a few new dimensions to what was a relatively good press manufacturer called Planeta and improved on it considerably.

Any event that demonstrates innovations has got to be good for the industry - it helps raise the bar for everybody.

CPC UK managing director Chris Dew, who is vice-chairman of BPIF Cartons, commented: "Using a special camera system to control sheet quality for the presses was one interesting innovation.

But the bigger picture is that anything new has got to be more cost-effective and improve the quality of output for printers.

Our members really enjoyed it.

KBA UK managing director, Christian Knapp, said he was delighted to be a partner of the BPIF and to receive such excellent support from the UK carton industry.

He added "The packaging sector is a vital one for us and once again we have been able to demonstrate with our ink, paper, finishing and pre-press partners the innovation for which KBA is rightly renowned.

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