“I know every carton maker in the country bangs on about service, but if you ask any of our customers I’m sure they will tell you that we absolutely deliver on that front,” says Waseem. “It’s because we are small enough to care about every account, but big enough and flexible enough to have the staff and equipment to adapt to what the customer needs. The big carton plants have their production plans to follow and their schedules to stick to. With us, we listen to what our customers actually want and plan our production accordingly.”
While to many this might seem like a particularly difficult way to operate, Waseem doesn’t see it that way. “We are a family business, which means we have a personal relationship with every customer and want to do the best for them. Because we have invested in plant and equipment to give us capacity, and cross-skilled our staff to make the most of that capacity, we can modify our production plan at a minute’s notice if we need to.”
Waseem believes that this versatility keeps the company highly competitive when it comes to price. “We run lean by having staff who can operate several different machines, and handle many different processes. That way we keep versatility high, but labour costs low, and that reflects in our pricing.”
It is this versatility that means the company never lets customers down, says Waseem, and this creates a huge amount of trust between the company and its clients. ”They know that if they are in a tight spot we will do everything in our power to get them out of it. That’s especially important when we are handling trade work, because their customers often give them very little time to do the job.”
Trust runs both ways.
Established in 1981, the company was the brainchild of Naseem Akhtar, Waseem’s father, a forty year veteran of the printing industry. Ten years ago Waseem joined the company and says that the personal relationships and trust the pair have built up with customers extends to suppliers too. “The support and help we got from Bobst Group when we installed the Fuego, and in particular from Bobst’s Lee Alton, was very important to us. When we decided to look for a new window patcher we knew that we could trust Lee to give us honest advice about what we should look for. He did just that, and introduced us to Julius Schröder, Heiber + Schröder’s Managing Director. From that introduction we have built up the same excellent relationship with Heiber + Schröder as we have with Bobst.”
Represented in the UK and Ireland by Bobst Group, Heiber + Schröder is the best known name in window patching equipment, and the largest manufacturer worldwide. “The fact that they are represented and supported in the UK by Bobst Group was an important factor for us,” says Waseem. “It told us they would be a brand we could rely upon and, if the experience with the Fuego was anything to go by, we would get excellent service and support. And that’s how it has proved to be.”
Waseem says that, at the time of the new purchase, the company’s previous window patcher was struggling to cope. “It was a bottom fed roller affair and was not easy to run. When we saw the way that the Heiber + Schröder equipment worked we realised it was a much better solution.”
The WP1100 line installed at Waseema is a machine that is designed for fast make-ready, high production speeds, and quick clean-down after the run, says Lee Alton. “It’s also been designed so that it can be adapted on-site to add new functions as and when they need it, say if they find they have a need to add tear tape to their products, or need to insert coupons, or require some other new application that they haven’t even dreamt of yet.
A lot of attention has been paid to the machine’s ease of use, with the aim of leaving the operator free to concentrate on production and quality. For example, setting up the feeder on a window patcher is a critical, but often time-consuming, task. To make it quicker and easier, Heiber and Schröder have developed an innovative feeder setting system called "Teach in".
Lee says the system means it takes less than a minute to set the feeder of the WPS110 and involves the operator simply pressing a couple of buttons. “All they have to do is move the chain to its reference position, press the “Teach-in” button once and then place the blank into the feeder. After that they just jog the machine until the end of the blank reaches the feeder gauge, press the “Teach-in” button again, and that’s it, the feeder is set.”
Another feature of the feeder on the WPS1100 is that it detects variations in the slip factor of the varnish applied to cartons and compensates automatically. “Printers won’t admit it, but there can be huge variations in the amount of varnish applied during a print run,” says Lee. “By compensating automatically for these variations, the WPS1100 ensures that every job runs at the highest speed possible rather than at the speed of the slowest performing blank.”
To aid ease of use, all the information the operator needs is on one screen of the control panel. They use this screen to input production parameters, including the setting of the film cut length and the shingling of the blanks on the delivery belt.
The WPS1100 can window patch blanks up to 1100mm in width and the blanks themselves can be made from carton board between 220 and 600 gsm, or from corrugated board up to 5mm thick. In terms of film, the machine can apply windows made from PE, PS, PVC, PET, or one of several other such substrates.
Keeping it clean.
Using a patented mono-belt vacuum transfer system, the Heiber + Schröder machine ensures that even warped blanks remain in register as they travel along the line and that the window is applied in precisely the right position every time. “And if for any reason there is an interruption in the supply of blanks,” says Lee, “the belt will automatically drop down. This stops any glue finding its way onto the print face of subsequent blanks and prevents a build up of dried glue that might scratch the print or damage the belt itself.”
Lee Alton also points out that another feature of the mono-belt system is that it is maintenance-free. “There are no vacuum channels or vacuum tubes to be cleaned and no filters, all of which saves users time and money.”
The single roller glue unit on the WPS1100 uses glue dams which define very specifically the area where adhesive is to be used. This reduces the amount of adhesive consumed and also maintains its quality because less of it is exposed to environmental factors such as ultra violet light. The machine also has a special cleaning unit which means that the operator can clean out the system in just a couple of minutes.
“The Heiber + Schröder has been a brilliant machine for us,” says Waseem. “It’s very user friendly, which was important for us as our old machine was difficult to set and run.” Film changeovers are particularly quick and easy on the WPS1100, says Waseem. “All you have to do is turn a valve, swap the film reels, and then turn the valve again. It really couldn’t be simpler.”
Having installed the Heiber + Schröder line, Waseema Packaging found that it was soon window patching much more product than it previously had. “We bought the WPS1100 to increase capacity, but once our customers realised we could cope with even more window patching, the work just rolled in. About 70% of the jobs we put through it are trade jobs for food and toiletries, with 30% being our own sweet box work.”
Complementing the window patcher are diecutter facilities, including the ability to blank separate jobs, and multipurpose gluing lines which provide straightline, crashlock, and 4&6 corner capabilities. “By having this equipment it means we can diecut, strip, and separate a range of products from small, many up, pharmaceutical boxes, to larger food and healthcare cartons,” says Waseem. “Then we can window patch them if necessary, fold and glue them, and deliver them to the customer in a short period of time. Whether the job is intricate, with lots of small waste, or hard to strip out for gluing, we can handle it.”
Move south.
The phenomenal growth of Waseema packaging in the last three years coincided with the company moving its production facility from Bradford, in the north of England, to Biggleswade, 150 miles south. “As a company we have always been based in the south and we always knew it would just be a matter of time before the packaging business was established enough to expand and move closer to our other operations,” says Waseem. That time came at the end of 2006 when the company found an 18,000 square foot facility on a large plot that was ideal for its needs. “We were fortunate in that a large group of our staff were happy to move with us, which made the transition much, much easier. Additionally the new plant was much more suitable for packaging manufacture and allowed us to gain BRC/IOP accreditation shortly after we moved in.”
The company still retains its old facility in Bradford and uses it as a logistics facility for customers in the north of England.
Still growing.
With a much larger production facility, BRC/IOP approval, and investment in new, more versatile equipment like the WPS1100, Waseem says the business has increased turnover three times since the move and is still growing, even in the current economic climate. ”It comes down to service, reliability, and trust in the people you do business with. They are things our customers expect of us, and which we have found in Heiber + Schröder.”
November 2009
