Boxway was created in June this year when packaging industry veteran Andrew Woollard acquired Saica’s three sheet plants in England: Peterlee, Telford and Exeter.
In October, phase one of a major strategic investment plan was announced, including plans for new kit at 34-staff Peterlee to enable it to produce high value, bespoke, short- to medium-run work for existing, local customers and new clients.
Installed by Kolbus around seven weeks ago, following a demo to Boxway managers at Kolbus House, Houghton Regis, the Autobox Multi-Nova MN400 has a typical run speed of 1,500 boxes per hour and is suitable for batches of 500 to 5,000. Setup times are five minutes for straight-line and 20 minutes for crash-lock.
The device features a continuous bottom feeder with the compression section underneath, reducing footprint as well as allowing boxes to travel under the machine so that the same operator can feed and palletise.
“Once our operators gained a satisfactory level of confidence, we started to push the boundaries of the Multi-Nova,” said Boxway Peterlee general manager, Mark Barron, of the device.
He added that the team had been “pleasantly surprised” with the new device and that it was saving both time and resources.
Managing chief executive of Boxway Peterlee, Woollard, added: “We are extremely happy with the service from Kolbus UK. They arranged a demonstration quickly, communicated through the build process and now post-sales are undertaking additional training both here and at other sites.”
Further investment at Peterlee, under phase one of Boxway’s plan, includes a Weipong Venus 1630 four-colour rotary die-cutter for printing onto board and to enable future inside/outside printing capability.
Speciality gluing equipment is also set to be upgraded at the group’s Exeter plant as well as the planned install of a Hanway HighJet 2500B water-based digital printer. Exeter is also set to be the site of Boxway’s new UK Design Hub.
In Telford, investment is focused across admin, IT infrastructure and sales resources.
All aspects of phase one are set to be operational by the end of Q2 next year, according to the company.
Further investment plans are expected to be announced in 2022, with details for an expansion of POS and display, promotional and presentational packaging capabilities to be revealed in Q4.
