India’s first Speedwave-II on Bobst Expertfold at SAPCO

Bobst had demonstrated Speedwave-II on an Expertfold for the first time in India in February 2018 during an open house at its Pune plant.

Hemant Bhotica, director, SAPCO, said, “We produce more than 80-lakh crash-lock cartons in a month and the volumes are growing. We were facing backlogs with our existing machines. We needed additional pasting capacity.”

SAPCO’s pasting division is equipped with one Bobst Fugo folder-gluer and two Acme machines of which Fugo and one Acme is capable of processing lock-bottom cartons.

Explaining his decision to invest in a Bobst folder-gluer, Bhotica said, “We always understood that Bobst Expertfold is an expensive machine. However, with Speedwave-II, the proposition changes. Thanks to the hook-free operation the productivity of processing lock-bottom cartons increases more than 50% and even more as compared to a regular folder-gluer.”

Bhotica added, “Speedwave is not a new technology. I was impressed with the technology when I saw it for the first time at Drupa 2008 and also at Drupa 2012. It was a technological breakthrough. But it was exclusive to Masterfold at that time.”

The Speedwave–II module helps to fold crash-lock boxes without any moving device or traditional lock bottom hooks. Moreover, the operator needs to set 60% less parts on the machine during makeready. This requires lesser levels of operator skills and also saves set-up time.

“When Bobst demonstrated the technology on the Expertfold during the open house in Pune earlier this year, we saw it could process crash-lock cartons at almost the same speed as straight line cartons. So in effect, adding a Speedwave equipped Expertfold is equivalent to adding two folder-gluers in terms of productivity and at a cost that is definitely less than that of buying two folder-gluers. So it a value-for-money kit,” concluded Bhotica.