Bobst has unveiled its latest solutions and strategic partnerships to help shape the future of the packaging world, contributing to a new era in packaging, connecting the entire production line, enabling seamless end-to-end workflows.
‘We are fulfilling our industry vision ‘to shape the future of the packaging world’ based on the pillars of connectivity, digitalisation, automation, and sustainability,’ said Jean-Pascal Bobst, CEO, Bobst Group. ‘Our solutions empower printers and converters to embrace digitalisation while advancing towards a more sustainable future. We are proud to engage with industry leaders, forge new partnerships, and chart a course towards continued innovation and progress.’
The company’s Digital Master 55 is a new all-in-one digital printing and converting platform tailored for the folding carton industry. Combining printing, embellishment, quality control, and die-cutting inline at 100m/min, the Digital Master 55, said Bobst, ensures the shortest time to market and the best Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) among printing and converting solutions.
This platform, which features full inline and automated printing adjustment capabilities and quality inspection, is ideal for runs up to 6000 B1 equivalent sheets where it can significantly reduce production time by up to 80% and reduce costs on short runs, while eliminating waste, logistics, and downtime required for traditional production processes, explained Bobst.
In the packaging sector, Bobst has targeted improvement in connectivity and digitalisation with its new Bobst Connect, enabling a closed-loop workflow ecosystem from pdf to twin pdf to boost productivity, ease of use and contribute to sustainability. The cloud-based digital platform has had an update to equipment monitoring, providing more detailed data insights.
For labels, the new cloud based Bobst’s Digital Front End (DFE) 3.0, will be showcased for the first time to the public and be commercially available later in the year. This enables access to real-time data, resources and workflow templates. Colour management can be managed centrally and shared in the cloud, and its web-based interface supports multiple users across multiple sites.
Bobst is also launching a cloud-based certified substrate library in Bobst Connect, which allows converters to access up to date Bobst certified material lists to fast-track substrate calibration.
Other innovations include inspection improvements to Accucheck. Automatic quality inspection setup for every job, and job queue synchronisation ensuring zero setup time has been addressed. This eliminates the bottleneck for quality control setup, meaning customers can inspect every single job without any extra time or effort.
Calibration improvements include a new colour uniformity feature. Meanwhile, the colour-to-colour registration now performs complete calibration in just 15 minutes, while another new feature enhances automatic nozzle compensation to include deviated nozzles in addition to missing nozzles.
The company has also unveiled a new range of UV digital inks designed to meet the highest standards in ink compliance, Thalia ink. TPO free, and compliant with major regulations including Reach and Eupia GMP, the Thalia inks are without any CMRs (carcinogens, mutagens or reproductive toxins).
Specifically for the folding carton industry, the Thalia Foldable UV inks, said Bobst, address the foldability challenge of high ink coverage or dark colour applications. With its formulation, the inks maintain its post curing elasticity after an extended period, making them ideal for high-speed folding-gluing, small creasing lines, and sharp angles.
Bobst is also launching a new version of its flagship flatbed die-cutter the Mastercut 165 Per. Able to handle corrugated board and folding carton, the machine delivers batches or pallets of blanks due to its novel Dual Stream system. A new carbon gripper bar enables an increased running speed of up to 7500 sheets per hour, while in-line quality control with automatic waste ejection delivers zero-fault packaging.
Following recent partnerships, including one with Packitoo, to reinforce the company’s data and cloud-based software capabilities, Bobst is continuing and expanding its successful collaboration with Microsoft. In an increasingly AI-driven environment, this collaboration provides the cloud-based infrastructure, the expertise, and data security needed for Bobst to provide state-of-the-art software solutions to its customers.
