During the recent Competence 15 customer event, held at its Mex headquarters near Lausanne, Bobst presented its wide product range for the folding carton and corrugated converting sectors.
Entitled ‘Inspiring Business Solutions’, the event not only saw 300 attendees witness machine premieres and innovations from Bobst, but also it featured a parallel conference programme offering perspectives on a number of business topics, ranging from increasing business performance to the latest trends, opportunities and challenges facing different sectors of the packaging industry.
Philippe Milliet, head of business unit sheet-fed, said, ‘Competence 15 was carefully designed to be different to a typical launch event. The idea of the ‘Inspiring Business Solutions’ theme was to showcase not only the latest Bobst developments, which are designed to help solve specific problems our customers face, but also to present them with ideas and perspectives that will help them tackle the challenges that will affect them over the coming years. These perspectives came from our own experts, as well as from brand owners and business thinkers.’
Framed by the modern facilities of the dedicated Competence Center, the event was held on 23 to 25 June. Here the company presented Foil Unwinder+, a new foiling solution for use with the Masterfoil 106 PR offering up to 50% savings in foil use. Also on show was the Visioncut 106 LER, a new blank separating die-cutter, with cam driven platen and dynamic optical lateral register control for accuracy and production consistency. It comes with a fully automatic Smart Feeder and has a top speed of 8000 sheets per hour.
The event further included the European debut of Novacut 106 ER, a blank separating die-cutter, which had its world premiere last summer at ExpoPrint Brazil and recently won gold at the Embanews Brazilian Packaging Awards. This entry-level machine features a new simplified feeder head, faster makeready, smoother sheet feeding and micro adjustments for additional precision settings. Also launched was Expertcode, a new digital serialisation machine addressing the increasing needs of packaging makers worldwide for coding and customisation.
Visitors also saw a number of service products designed to increase productivity, reduce costs or ensure safety. These included a new Platen Conditioning service that removes the oxidation that can build up on beams, chases and platens, and protects the machine against further corrosion. The service can reduce makeready times on die-cutters by between 25% and 50% and the cutting force needed to run a job by up to 30%.
Complementing these introductions were a number of new product and finance solutions from Bobst partners, including Deutsche Leasing, Hunkeler, HB Fuller, Marbach GmbH, Henkel, Kurz, Hinderer+Mühlich GmbH, Lasertec, Baumerhhs, SGM and UEI Group.
The conference programme included a presentation from Charlotte D’Aulnois of coaching and consultancy company SAPHIR-DNS, on how to boost business performance using neuroscience and sports coaching. A review of upcoming requirements impacting pharmaceutical packaging was given by Patrik Merckell of Novartis; while a look at the food safety challenges facing digitally printed packaging was presented by Steven Klump of Nestlé. The conference also included sessions by François Hosotte of Ferring on the secondary packaging challenges facing pharma brand owners and their suppliers; a review of packaging trends in the cosmetics industry by Bobst’s Alex Volery; and Alvise Cavallari of Nestlé outlined some of the many opportunities offered to the packaging industry by developments in digital printing.
