As North America’s first dedicated sheet feeding company, Corrugated Synergies International, LLC (CSI) is accustomed to setting new industry trends; the company did just that at the recent Electronics For Imaging, Inc. Connect users’ conference when it became the first company to purchase the full ecosystem of EFI technologies for corrugated packaging, featuring EFI Corrugated Packaging Suite manufacturing execution system (MES) software for business ERP and production management integrated with an EFI Fiery digital front end (DFE) and the breakthrough Nozomi C18000 ultra-high-speed single-pass LED inkjet press.
“CSI has pioneered many things in our industry,” according to CSI Vice President of Manufacturing and Print Jeffery Dumbach, noting that the Nozomi installation means CSI can address the need for analog-to-digital transformation in corrugated print supply chains that often suffer from excess production, storage and obsolescence costs. “With the existing processes, people carry an excess of inventory. But using the Nozomi press, our customers will purchase precisely what they need when they need it,” he said.
A complete inkjet print, Fiery DFE and Corrugated Packaging Suite workflow
The Renton, Washington-based company, which manufactures corrugated sheets for box manufacturers, will be the first dedicated sheet feeder to install the Nozomi press, an award-winning, ultra-high-speed production system that redefines the role of digital print in the corrugated packaging space with throughput speeds up to 6,600 2.6x3.3-foot (800x1,000-cm) boards per hour. The 71-inch (1.8-meter) wide LED inkjet device being installed early this summer will include the complete EFI ecosystem of corrugated production options and products, with six-color plus white ink installed on the press and fully integrated top- and bottom-feeding units.
That ecosystem of advanced technologies coming to CSI includes the fast, efficient job-processing and color management capabilities of the EFI Fiery NZ-1000 high-performance DFE. The Corrugated Packaging Suite MES workflow coming to CSI facilitates plant-wide management and integration of digital production for a full, end-to-end business and production framework to handle the company’s digital, analog flexo, single-face litho-lam and litho label operations.
“We are excited to have the first ‘all-in’ move to digital in corrugated with both the new Press and the full production workflow from EFI for corrugated packaging,” said Dumbach. “The market will move and grow quickly with digital so there are benefits for us and our customers being ahead of the curve.
“The Corrugated Packaging Suite is a real advantage,” he added, “because it is fluent in everything we do as a company, so it can change how we manage production as our product mix shifts from analog to digital.”
Game-changing quality and efficiency for warehouse club and retail packaging
CSI’s new Press provides high-quality output with resolutions up to 360x720 dots per inch with four-level grayscale imaging. A 100% in-line inspection system on the Press is tied to robust print optimization technologies, including inkjet nozzle, alignment and uniformity correction. CSI executives, according to Dumbach, were “blown away” by the high quality of print the Press provided. Last year, those executives also visited the first Nozomi installation in Spain, where Dumbach said he observed long, uninterrupted production runs and seamless, end-to-end production on multiple jobs without downtime for cleaning printheads, stitching or other common changeover issues.
Digital printing will add significant value for CSI customers, including box manufacturers serving companies that sell their products at big box and warehouse club retail stores. Digital printing’s benefits in quick time-to-market for different designs creates opportunities for regional, customized packaging strategies that boost sell through.
“There are particular advantages with digital for selling new products through warehouse clubs,” Dumbach noted. “Oftentimes, a club might order two pallets of a product as an initial order to see how it sells, and that requires a huge upfront investment with analog printing.” Using the EFI Nozomi press, on the other hand, makes it easier and faster to create and launch new, superior-quality packaging for those initial club launches – without the minimum run-length requirements, larger prep expenses, make-ready waste and inventory costs required with analog print.
