From: Packaging Digest

Freebox's on-demand box-making capability includes personalized graphics.
Ecommerce packaging options for numerous packaged goods center largely on boxing the products for shipment. System Group in Italy offers a packaging machine that can produce personalized, on-demand boxes including different box sizes in the same cycle. The FreeBox machine not only customizes each box, it can personalize each box with logos and graphics.

Starting with corrugated sheets of about 47 inches square (1200x1200 mm), the machine creates the required box packaging with the option of high-definition printing of the logos, codes or other information in one or more colors. The entire automated process is monitored by a system of internal cameras for total operator control.

It runs single flute B, C and double-flute EB.  The system can also produce trays and lids.

How it’s done is unique

The secret to per-box customization? The box is formed from a base and two end sections that are produced by the machine in two separate areas. The end sections are formed on the left-hand side of the machine, while the base is formed on the right-hand side; these are combined at the center section for gluing and box forming. This arrangement allows one box to be manufactured using blanks of different fluting.

The end-section production magazine supplies blanks of 1200x200, 300 and 400mm, while the base section magazine, equipped with a gluing compartment, supplies blanks of four different widths as selected by the operator.

Boxes produced using Freebox technology have shown BCT test (Box Compression Test) with resistance to 474lb/215 kg. Output is 3 to 7 boxes per minute.


Latest advancements

The company latest improvement to the system is the availability of remote predictive maintenance, which is part of the company’s upgrade of products to Industry 4.0, according to Franco Stefani, president and founder. “Our innovative system for remote data acquisition consists of a software package capable of establishing levels of user rights to perform specic operations and to take control of the machine interface,” he explains. “It does not matter where the customer is located in the world, we can support their activity every day.”

Stefani says FreeBox customers include packaged goods companies and one “internationally known customer” that has used the technology to ship handmade products all over the world.

For more information, visit http://www.system-group.it or contact Francesca Cuoghi, press office supervisor, at fcuoghi@system-group.it