The company will take delivery of the folder gluer in October in time for it to be "well and truly" bedded-in by the time the press arrives in the first quarter of 2013, according to managing director Mark Kerridge, who bought the company at the end of last year.
He said there had been an increased demand in gluing jobs as a consequence of announcing the XL 106, most of which were becoming increasingly complex.
The folder gluer joins a portfolio of six already in place at the 'Best Factory'-shortlisted Bardon plant to replace a mid-1990s Jagenburg.
The machines currently reach maximum speeds of 15,000 cartons per hour when handling more complex jobs such as six-corner and crash lock cartons, but Kerridge believes the 25,000 box per hour capability of the Diana X115 would help to eliminate a potential bottleneck.
He said: "Complex cartons tend to run slower than high speed straight line skillets and this was putting a constraint on capacities in our finishing department.
"We took the decision to increase our capacity in our complex gluing capacity and the Heidelberg provides that for us."
Benson Box is adding a semi-automatic packing line to the end of the Diana X115 to present the boxes for delivery at similar speeds to the gluer’s output.
