Schumacher Packaging has installed the UK’s first Delta SPC 130 FlexLine Eco+ single pass high volume digital press from Koenig & Bauer Durst at its facility in Birmingham.
This press, with six colours will be a central focal point for the company as it expands as a plain and printed cardboard manufacturer and is at the heart of a €30 million (£24.98 million) investment that also involves upgrading its Birmingham manufacturing base and two nearby warehouses.
With latest machine, the company now has four Delta SPC 130s. Two are currently located at Schumacher’s headquarters in Ebersdorf, Germany, and the other at Saica in Wroclav, Poland, formerly Schumacher Packaging. They also have six-colour capabilities.
Koenig & Bauer Durst’s FlexLine Eco+ press features an eco-plus drier that reduces drying times to cut energy consumption and associated costs, as well as speeding up productivity for maximised capacity. The Delta SPC 130 can print on uncoated materials with speeds of up to 80m/hr.
Darren Melville, managing director of Schumacher Packaging Birmingham, said the installation of the Delta SPC 130 coincides with the company’s strategy of sustainable, cost-saving digital production.
He added that as consumers become more environmentally conscious, brands are under increasing pressure to adopt eco-friendly packaging solutions. Many are working towards 2025 extended producer responsibility for packaging targets, and this is where the best of corrugated board and digital print can converge to deliver recyclable packaging with zero-waste designs, Mr Melville stated.
Daniel Velema, managing director of Koenig & Bauer Durst, said, ‘With the increasing emphasis on sustainability, companies such as Schumacher Packaging recognise the huge benefits that digital brings with highly automated systems in corrugated packaging and board markets. They and their customers can see the benefits of changing from offset and flexo, particularly as run lengths are getting smaller and order lead times become ever shorter.
‘Digital printing, in essence only printing what you want, when you need it, has always been a technology with strong sustainability credentials and an opportunity to reduce paper consumption. The ability now to add paper weight reductions to further lower cost and consumption is also a very powerful argument for digital transformation,’ he concluded.
