Developing Sample Making With Kongsberg Table

Line Packaging and Display has built a dedicated sample making room at its premises in Gillingham, Kent (UK) to house its new Esko-Graphics Kongsberg XL24 sample table.

Line Packaging and Display has built a dedicated sample making room at its premises in Gillingham, Kent (UK) to house its new Esko-Graphics Kongsberg XL24 sample table.

The company, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2006, creates and manufactures POS displays and protective packaging for major names in the food, entertainment, stationery and industrial markets.

"Our designers are encouraged to use their creativity to produce innovative POS in style and material," explained John McCready, Line Packaging and Display's studio manager.

"Consequently, we are making maximum use of our sample table to create fully mocked-up prototypes in board and propropylene." Line Packaging bought its first sample table in 1999 but recently found that it did not have the capacity to handle all the work.

McCready commented: "Designers were having to stay late, so that they could get their work on the table.

We not only made a case for another sample table but also for a dedicated operator and a new sample room.

It also meant that we could move our existing table out of the studio to make room for two new designers." The company wanted a table that was quick and reliable, together with a supplier that could give it first class service, said Esko-Graphics.

Graphic designer, Dave Beevis, had experience of an Esko-Graphics Kongsberg XL24 table at his previous job: "The reliability, build quality, and accuracy are the best in the industry.

We have a lot of cutting and half cutting to register in a wide range of materials because some of our displays are quite complex.

We also produce miniature, desktop-size samples, which require small, finely cut pieces.

The XL24 can handle these effortlessly.

I also knew that Esko-Graphics would support us well, so I had no hesitation in recommending the company." Line Packaging purchased the 1,680mm x 3,050mm sample table with a standard Flexihead.

Beevis continued: "We may well invest in a foam cutter in the near future because we are moving into cosmetic packaging.

The XL24 is a very quiet machine and the finished job is much neater than the work that we produce on our older table.

It is also simpler when we have an extra large sheet of material to put on the XL24.

We can cut part of it and then move the sheet along.

It is easy to get it in register again, which would be impossible on our older table." In less than two months, Line Packaging has almost filled the XL24.

Next to prototypes they are also using it for small production runs.

"If we have to produce very small runs of up to 20 elaborate displays, it is more cost effective to cut them on the Kongsberg XL24 than spend approximately GBP1200 on production tooling," said John McCready.

Line Packaging also cuts runs of up to 100 small items on the XL24 where several pieces can be nested on one sheet of board.

The company has also purchased two sets of Esko-Graphics ArtiosCAD software, which operate alongside their existing structural software system.

Files from both systems are sent to the 'samples to be made' folder on the server in CF2 format ready for processing.

Dave Beevis explained: "We use the ArtiosCAD for all of our graphic displays because the software is much more user friendly.

Its compatibility with Adobe enables us to pull the images straight in to Illustrator.

Some of our jobs have templates with borders, so all we have to do is drop in the images.

As well as being simpler, the finished result is crisper." And McCready concluded: "In a company like ours, where we are not fazed by any packaging or POS requirement, however complicated it may be, we need to maximise our design time.

The Kongsberg XL24 has made a huge difference, not only to our productivity but also to our ability to take on these challenges.".

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