Offset Printing
Spanish footwear packaging specialist Miger finds the perfect fit with BOBST
Thursday 27. May 2021 - The company has seen productivity improvements on all types of boxes. Mr Ferrandiz highlighted the benefits with automatic bottom boxes, where the framer at the entrance of the sheet corrects the gluing position to avoid fishtailing and therefore avoiding regluing of boxes.
The beautiful Spanish city of Elda in the Province of Alicante is known for its footwear industry, in particular for women’s shoes, and it boasts the Footwear Museum among its tourist attractions. It is little wonder therefore that it is here that packaging company Miger established itself as a leading specialist in the development of laminated shoe boxes.
Now, as the company continues to diversify into other sectors, including food, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, it knows it must keep innovating to remain one step ahead of its competitors.
“Ever since our company was founded in 1983, we have had a proud history of providing top quality packaging for our clients, and that hasnt changed since we diversified from the footwear market,” said Francisco Ferrandiz, CEO of Miger. “Now, in an increasingly competitive market across multiple industries, the focus is on increasing our productivity while maintaining that high quality. And to do that, we need the latest technology.”
BOBST EXPERTFOLD 110 A2 helps Miger stay one step ahead
The companys most recent investment is a BOBST EXPERTFOLD 110 A2, an extremely versatile folder-gluer, which allows users to produce an impressive number of box styles in a wide range of materials at speeds of up to 450 meters per minute. Easy to operate, it delivers both striking productivity and boxes of unrivalled quality.
“What particularly appealed to us about the BOBST EXPERTFOLD 110 A2 was its productivity, enabling us to be 40% more productive with the same number of staff,” said Ferrandiz. “One of the key functions that has reduced job changeover times is the creation and registration of jobs on the machine. When doing a job for the first time, we simply enter the characteristics of the box, and when the job is repeated, we just find it in the database and everything is automated. This function has allowed us to reduce changeover times between jobs by up to 50%.”
Indeed, through the reduction in changeover times, the increase in production speeds and the reduction in defective boxes, Migers Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) has increased by 12%.
And as Ferrandiz points out, its not just productivity, but quality too. “With 4- and 6-point cartons, the possibility of electronically adjusting the hooks, both the angle and the position, has increased the quality of the final product considerably,” he said.
A partnership forged over 25 years
The BOBST EXPERTFOLD 110 A2 is the latest of several BOBST innovations that Miger has invested in over the years. The partnership between the two companies began in 1996 with the purchase of an SP 102 EII automatic die cutter and that was followed two years later by a MEDIA 100 A2 folder-gluer. Miger also invested in the BOBST NOVACUT 106 E and BOBST NOVACUT 106 ER flatbed die-cutters in 2009 and 2017 respectively, before Miger decided it was time to upgrade the MEDIA 100 A2 to the EXPERTFOLD 110 A2.
“We have known BOBST for many years and we know we can rely on their quality, both in terms of the technology and the service they provide,” said Ferrandiz. “For example, with the EXPERTFOLD 110 A2, the installation and adaptation was very quick thanks to a week of quality instruction and training by the BOBST team. And we know that level of service is always there when we need it.”
Now, with their new folder-gluer established and already having a significant impact on the companys productivity, Ferrandiz feels like Miger is ready to face the future, no matter how unpredictable it may be.
“In the current environment it is difficult for companies to predict long-term sales forecasts, which leads to smaller production batches due to the uncertainty of demand,” he said. “This leads to a higher number of job changes throughout the day. Now we are well equipped to handle this high number of job changeovers while improving productivity and maintaining our high quality.”