Herbert Walkers has implemented a new strategy to focus on packaging following an investment of over £4 million in the last four years to offset the company’s reliance upon greetings cards.
This investment includes two gluing lines, an auto stripping machine, a new printing press, a new MIS system and a Dyss X5-1310T die-less digital cutting table from AG/CAD.
Pre-press manager, Rick Ingham, commented, ‘Our business is primarily the production of folding cartons and greetings cards in the B1/B2 format. As the business has grown, we have witnessed an increased demand for prototype work and short run carton and greeting card production on our digital presses. Prior to the arrival of the Dyss cutting table, our prototype and small batch production work would have to wait for external companies to produce cutting dies. Now, we can turn a prototype around within 24 hours as opposed to 2-4 days. This short turnaround time has been well received by our customers and it has generated very positive feedback. Additionally, we have eliminated the cost of external platen production on prototypes and short production runs.’
The addition of the Dyss to the plant list has cut lead times on prototypes and small production runs of up to 100-200 boxes by over 70%.
This lead time has been further reduced by the implementation of AG/CAD’s leading Kasemake CAD software package. As Mr Ingham continued, ‘We have two Kasemake licenses and this allows one designer to develop carton and container designs ready for production whilst another designer can create and cut blankets that are used on greeting cards and packaging work. This combination ensures the Dyss cutting table is always busy. Furthermore, the creation and cutting of blankets has drastically reduced our set-up times over all 4 presses. By doing the blankets on the Dyss, we have reduced non-production time on our presses and cut set-up times by up to 1.5 hours for each print run. With all four presses capable of cutting blankets, this is a significant saving.’
