Become a FESPA Member
to Continue Reading

Become a Member Find Out More

We speak to EFI’s VP of Business Development, Kerry Sanders, about the company’s breakthrough X5 Nozomi all-in-one, right-size, variable data, digital printing corrugated box machine.

How does EFI’s Nozomi technology fit in with the way corrugated cardboard boxes are manufactured?

Nozomi is a high-speed digital printing press, which prints in a single pass directly on to corrugated boards. To manufacture corrugated boxes, converters take blank sheets of corrugated material and run them through a Nozomi digital press to print any graphics. They then run the printed corrugate through a converting workflow to make cuts and creases and ready them to become boxes. With Nozomi being digital print, it allows for more variation and faster turnaround times, and it’s more sustainable. That means the value proposition is sound and has been growing in popularity: we have over 70 of our digital presses installed around the world.

How does the X5 Nozomi push business forward?

The X5 Nozomi is a machine that EFI has created in partnership with a company called Packsize. Packsize manufactures on-demand right-size packaging systems. They make the box to fit exactly what is required at the time that it is needed.

Instead of ordering 10,000 boxes and shipping them to the location where you need them, Packsize machines are installed directly at fulfilment centres and placed in the pick, pack and ship line. Robots pick things for an order off the shelves; they take those things to a packing station; a right-size packaging box is created; it is filled; and then it goes off to taping, labelling and it is shipped out.

Right-size packaging is one of the hottest trends right now in fulfilment and logistics because the value proposition is so good. You are reducing the corrugated that you need by up to 40% because you are right-sizing the packaging. You are also reducing the consumption of filler material by more than 80%. And shipping charges, when based on dimensional volume, can also be reduced.

We took the Packsize system and inserted a digital press in the middle of it. That means you get on-demand, right-size packaging, and the digital press allows you to print different graphics, different text, different barcodes or QR codes on every box.

The personalisation that we have been talking about in the packaging business is now finally a reality and we already have customers who have these systems in their fulfilment…

...