Hungarian folding carton manufacturer Kartonpack boosts productivity by 25 percent with new Speedmaster CX 104 from Heidelberg

• Speedmaster CX 104 in production at pilot user Kartonpack since September 2020
• Successful business with new customers bucks trend
• Intelligent operating concept and new coating unit support Kartonpack business model

Founded in Debrecen in 1952, the Hungarian folding carton manufacturer Kartonpack Dobozipari Nyrt. (Kartonpack) currently employs over 100 staff. With its 70 years of experience in the printing and packaging industry, Kartonpack is one of Hungary’s leading packaging printers. Working in close collaboration with its customers and over 200 suppliers, the company makes packaging for local and multinational pharmaceutical businesses, the cosmetics sector, and the food industry. Kartonpack’s services cover the entire value chain – from structural and graphic design, printing, and die cutting all the way through to the finished folding carton. The company exports its products to Austria, Belgium, Germany, Romania, and Russia.

Even though Hungary’s economy has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, Kartonpack decided to invest in the new Speedmaster CX 104 from Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) as a pilot user, with a view to further boosting the efficiency of its production processes. The market’s response to this sign of strength and confidence has been entirely positive, and the company reports that it has been able to adjust capacities in recent months and boost volumes.

Kartonpack President and CEO Dr. Sándor Uszkay-Boiskó explains the motivation behind this investment decision as follows: “The Speedmaster CX 104 was installed as part of a strategic collaboration. Only one other European print shop had this opportunity, something we are extremely proud about. Taking into account our job structure, we’ve found that the new Speedmaster CX 104 fully meets our current and future expectations regarding flexibility, reliability, and quality. We’ve been particularly impressed by the system’s intelligent control concept and the coating unit’s high performance levels.”

Many of the same intelligent features as Heidelberg XL technology

Kartonpack commissioned the new Speedmaster CX 104 back in September 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, with support from the highly efficient Heidelberg service organization in Hungary. It has been in continuous three-shift operation at the company ever since. After just the first full month of production, the new press had already taken over the bulk of the production volume. The printing system is switched to a new packaging job several times during each shift. Given this job structure, the rapid changeovers on the Speedmaster CX 104 are particularly beneficial. The new coating unit developed by Heidelberg makes a key contribution to this speed. Its concept is identical to that used on the Speedmaster XL 106 in many respects. Thanks to their lighter weight and simple locking mechanism, the screen rollers can be changed quickly by just one person. The resulting time saving of over 75 percent is having a clear impact, as Kartonpack frequently changes the coating application. What’s more, a complete set of printing plates can be replaced in less than two minutes thanks to Autoplate Pro. Many of the intelligent control features come from XL technology. The Intellistart 3 assistance software installed on Prinect Press Center XL 3 analyzes the jobs listed in the job queue and activates all the necessary washup and makeready processes during job changes. The Speedmaster Operating System guides operators through the setup and production process in a logical sequence, providing ample warning when a manual task needs to be performed. Nóra Teleki, Kartonpack’s Production and Operations Manager, particularly appreciates the clearly structured user guidance and how easy it is to understand the displays on Prinect Press Center XL 3 that show the functions and operating status of the press. “The total time saving is significant. On average, it takes us ten minutes less to set up jobs on the Speedmaster CX 104. Overall, the new press has boosted our net productivity by more than 25 percent compared with our Speedmaster CX 102,” she confirms.

A great press and the right partner

One year on from commissioning, Dr. Uszkay-Boiskó sums up his impressions as follows: “We place high demands on our production technology because we want to offer our customers the best possible services and packaging products. The Speedmaster CX 104 is the perfect press for us and Heidelberg is our ideal partner. We can now produce even larger volumes even more efficiently and meet our customers’ needs even more flexibly than before.”

Heidelberg unveiled the new Speedmaster CX 104 to the public in summer 2021 and is testing the system in close collaboration with customers prior to the start of series production. One of the first systems went to Kartonpack, which commissioned the elevated five-color press with coating unit in August 2020 as part of a pilot project. Florian Franken, Head of Product Management CX 104, regards this as a perfect scenario. “Kartonpack was the ideal choice for our pilot phase – a packaging printer that puts the system through its paces and can compare it with previous Heidelberg presses and systems from other suppliers,” he says. The Speedmaster CX 104 joined a Speedmaster CX 102-5+L that has been operating at Kartonpack since 2016. The company also uses Saphira consumables from Heidelberg on both these sheetfed offset presses.