Finishing & Screen Printing

Swedish packaging specialist aPak boosts productivity with automated solution from Kongsberg

Friday 03. December 2021 - The designer, printer and manufacturer of customised packaging, which has more than a century of experience, recently installed a new Kongsberg C64 cutting table with automatic infeed and stacker at its plant in Mölndal, near Gothenburg.

Swedish packaging specialist aPak has invested heavily in Kongsberg digital converting solutions to automate its production and deliver the production speed and flexibility its customers expect.
“We deliver the best results to our customers by providing tailor-made packaging solutions, effective warehousing and automation,” says Jan Vesterberg, Packaging Designer at aPak. “We have seen a growing demand for fast deliveries, especially for smaller production volumes. On top of that, it became increasingly difficult for us to produce larger quantities of items due to the material shortages that occurred as a result of the pandemic.”
“We were already upgrading an older CAM solution anyway and were looking for a faster, better and more versatile machine,” explains Jan Vesterberg. “The impressive Kongsberg automation solution seemed the perfect choice to significantly improve our performance. Not only are we now able to produce samples with greater speed and precision, but we can also produce smaller product batches on site, a huge advantage for our customers.”
“Thanks to this investment, we now have a digital finishing solution that both adds value for our customers and opens up new business opportunities for us,” says Jan Vesterberg. “The tools that come with our system ensure that we can always use the best possible equipment for each job. We have already been able to benefit from faster sample processing and the delivery of small batches, and now we are able to handle orders that we could not take on before. This will allow us to enter markets in the future where we were not previously present,” he adds. “We are now able to produce unique packaging, customised for almost any purpose, without the need for additional, expensive tooling.”
Melanie Fox, Territory Sales Manager at Kongsberg Precision Cutting Systems, points out that the Kongsberg C64 offers the highest level of performance. “The sophisticated design with cutting-edge technology offers a combination of aluminium composite table top, rack-and-pinion drive system and dynamic system adjustment. It thus ensures the highest cutting precision and consistency,” she explains.
“The new table is fed via Kongsberg’s feeder and stacker, which allows aPak to significantly increase its productivity. Thanks to the stacking height and fast automatic loading cycles, this is the optimal solution for short-run production on a wide variety of materials. The bottom-side camera eliminates manual processes and eliminates the need to check each sheet and calculate registration marks. It scans each sheet from the bottom, on the printed side, and automatically detects registration marks, barcodes and sheet corners,” says Melanie Fox. “This saves us up to thirty minutes in preparing each job and allows us to increase our productivity even further.”
Jan Vesterberg adds that the combination of a fast turnaround process and the flexibility to adapt to current packaging trends for much smaller market segments on the fly gives aPak a special position in the market. “We can now offer our customers an even better service,” he says. “Even if a customer is already working with someone else, once they see what we are capable of, we will be the first name they think of when the word ‘packaging’ comes up.”