Case study: How a packaging manufacturer cut curvature complaints by 100% thanks to Perfect Fold technology.

Company Solpap is one of the leading Czech manufacturers of transport and retail packaging made from corrugated cardboard. Over the course of a year it produces more than 15 million packaging items in thousands of different designs, strengths, dimensions and prints for customers across the country. The company's flagship product is boxes with double-sided printing. This family business's tradition dates back to 1938.

“At such a high production volume, reducing the reject rate and complaints is very important to us,” explains Milan Jiruška, Production and Technical Director at Solpap. “When cardboard is folded, spring-back forces arise that cause it to crack and also wear the tools. So when we saw a system for applying softening liquid at a packaging plant abroad, this solution really caught our attention. We wanted to improve the fold along the crease and reduce the number of complaints due to curvature,” he adds.

“We have been working with Kaletech for many years now and have had a good experience. We have long been satisfied with their Robatech adhesive application technology and with their communication. When the offer for the Perfect Fold system came, we immediately knew it could be just the thing for us,” explains Solpap's Sales Director Jiří Horák.

Perfect Fold applies softening liquid without contact onto two lines of the packaging intended for folding. The softening liquid reduces the stiffness of the cardboard, so that it can be folded precisely at the folding edges and without much effort. Spring-back forces are minimised. Folding machines can therefore run at high production speeds and with lower demands on their set-up. The cardboard no longer cracks at the fold, and there are no gaps between the flaps or overlapping of them.

Perfect Fold consists of a dosing unit, two Sempre 30 jetting heads, their control via an AS 50 unit and a touch control panel located near the line's control station. A pump and an auxiliary tank in the dosing unit allow continuous operation even when the liquid containers are being changed. An I/P converter ensures that the correct amount of liquid is always applied to the product, even as the line speed changes.

“The whole process was actually very quick. We received the inquiry for the system in May and by early August it was already fully operational,” says Tomáš Langer, project manager at Kaletech. “Thanks to the simplicity of the system, the good relationship with the manufacturer and the excellent cooperation of Solpap as the customer, installing the system took just one day during the summer shutdown and one day of training afterwards. It ran without any trouble.”

And how does the company rate the solution after 7 months of operation? Milan Jiruška describes it as follows: “As far as the implementation goes, it met our expectations. We were very pleased with the speed and simplicity of the deployment. We hardly had to intervene in the operation at all.”

And what about the benefits for production? “Since installing Perfect Fold, we no longer deal with fold curvature and have no complaint about it. Previously the boxes bent outside the crease, following the flute inside the cardboard. The taller the box, the greater the resulting curvature. So far these complaints have dropped by 100% and we believe it will stay that way. Besides zero complaints, the boxes are straighter overall and customers are more satisfied. We no longer even deal with notices that the boxes are glued crooked. The technology has fully met our expectations and we are satisfied with it,” Jiří Horák sums up the deployment of the new technology.