Things never seem to be quiet at The Box Factory! The Royal Leamington Spa-based privately owned sheet plant has grown significantly over the last five or six years, thanks to ongoing investment in flexo converting equipment.
The company is somewhat of a Latitude show-room; they run three LMC flexo folder gluers, all next to each other in a dedicated factory unit next door to the offices, design, admin and manufacturing facility on the Sydenham industrial estate. But the latest investment project has seen the company bolster its rotary die-cutting capacity, with the installation of a Weipong Venus 1625 SSTKB flexo rotary die-cutter. The machine is equipped with four flexo print units – two top printing units and two bottom printing units, meaning the company can run inside-outside print in a single pass.
“We certainly saw an uplift in e-commerce packaging during the pandemic and subsequent months,” explains Neil Price, Managing Director. “We were servicing the two-sided print by double passing the work, which added to lead times slightly, so the investment in the Weipong is helping us to get back on track for this part of our business.”
Price continues, “We have worked with GTS Europe for quite some time now, having installed not only the LMC casemakers, but also significant chunks of Emmepi Group materials handling and pallet strappers. David Williams had told us about the new Weipong Venus and its inside-outside capability and we were keen to have a look; we were certainly pretty impressed with the samples we were shown and we took the plunge and ordered the machine.”
The new line is installed in the main building. “We took out some older equipment and shuffled a few things around to get the new line in,” he explains. “We were fully up and running in early January and the work it is producing so far has been very good.”
“We are delighted to continue the machinery partnership with The Box Factory,” says David Williams, Managing Director, GTS Europe. “Our relationship goes back many years and we have grown together as partner businesses; the trust that Neil Price and his team places in us is testament not only to the equipment we are able to supply them, but also the levels of service and support we provide. We are humbled to be able to help them take yet another step forward with this latest investment.”
“This is actually our first ever bespoke rotary die-cutter at The Box Factory,” concludes Price. “With our range of high quality flexo folder gluers, we did not think we needed to add a rotary die-cutter to our shop floor. However, we started to see more and more enquiries for work that would suit a rotary die-cutter, and for this reason we chose the Weipong machine. It is also taking a lot of pressure off our flatbed die-cutters, so overall, this has been a very positive move for us.”
