How Calheiros Embalagens boosts its productivity with IMPACK

Boosting productivity

In today’s complex and fast changing packaging market, investing in competitive equipment is not a simple matter. For cardboard packaging producers it can be quite challenging to decide what equipment is needed to make the folder-gluer lines more efficient.

Founded in 1968, Calheiros Embalagens company specializes in designing unique cardboard and micro-corrugated packaging solutions. Located in the city of Oporto in Portugal, the company operates in many industries such as food products, textiles, ceramics, glass, household devices, steel, shoe and many more. 

Calheiros Embalagens is the number one producer of micro-corrugated packaging in Portugal.  To respond to the growing demand, the Portuguese company was looking to invest in solutions to increase its productivity. Impack’s experts were able to easily guide the company towards the solutions to meet the company’s demand. 

Innovation in packaging design 

Calheiros Embalagens definitely stands out with its innovative packaging design which creates added value to the final products. The packaging company is dedicated to develop new lines and shapes for the FMCG (Fast-moving consumer goods) industry. With more than 45 years of experience, the Portuguese company focuses on developing packaging that ensures relevant communication purposes and on delivering quality products to reinforce the identity of its client’s brands.

Solving a production bottleneck 

Calheiros Embalagens’s packing process started to experience some limitations. The company is constantly seeking to improve the capabilities of its machines. The move towards automation was just a question of time and finding the right equipment.

“Before the Everio installation, our stacking process was entirely manual, requiring many operators to handle the production rate of the folding-gluing machine”. 

- Marcelo Azevedo, Production planning control Engineer at Calheiros Embalagens

A new step towards automation  

With the objectives of boosting their performance along with improving productivity, Calheiros Embalagens installed Impack’s Virtuo automatic packer at the end of the folder-gluer line in 2019.  The cooperation between Calheiros Embalagens and Impack has been going on for two years now.

The Impack Virtuo packer is designed for medium to very large boxes made of carton and corrugated board. The Virtuo is equipped with an IN3 box turner. The IN3 box turner is the most advanced version of Impack’s IN box turner series and provides added flexibility. All formats and types of boxes can be turned to the desired direction. It has a straight line mode when no turning is necessary. The IN3 box turner works also with any automatic packer from the industry.

The Everio automatic stacker offers multiple benefits 

For manufacturers of solid and corrugated board packaging, questions about the automation of the equipment mostly occur when the demand for production is rising and moving faster becomes crucial.   

After considering the current production capacity and analyzing suitable solutions, adding Impack’s Everio stacker to the production line was one key element to bring important improvements, mainly in terms of speed and set-up times. The Everio stacker was also evaluated as the most viable solution considering the various types of boxes the company produces. 

On February 10th, 2020, the Everio stacker, combined with the IN3 XL box turner, was installed at the end of the gluing line. The stacker is suitable for medium to large formats of boxes and can speed up to 20 stacks a minute. Coupled with an automatic banding system, the Everio stacker can respond to stacking and banding needs for all boxes coming from the folder-gluer. 

Directly installed at the end of the folder-gluer, the machine offers huge improvements on the folding gluing line. High operating speeds and short setup times are top priorities for cardboard packaging producers. The Everio stacker additionally offers a lot of flexibility to run the complex products Calheiros Embalagens produces.

Training process 

When installing Impack’s packing equipment on folding-gluing lines, Impack’s experts conduct a complete training to ensure that operators on production lines perfectly master the equipment. 

The complexity of the machines will determine the training time required. Training is very useful for staff to practice and to familiarize themselves with the machines. Impack’s team is all the way present to teach about setting improvements and correcting errors. Any time after the training process, Impack can easily assist the client with a remote access which allows to fine-tune settings for special products. 

Today, remote is not only an option. To provide safe procedures; installation and configuration can be performed remotely by our staff. They will provide you with all the resources necessary to make sure you have all the knowledge of our instructors available as if they were on-site. It goes without saying that clear communication is necessary from both parties.

For Calheiros Embalagens, the installation of the Everio machine was very simple and the training process with all the operators ran smoothly. The company already received training back in 2019 on the Virtuo packer. The staff was therefore familiar with the Intro module present on both Virtuo packer and Everio stacker. Training on the Everio stacker was given over 8 days in February 2020. 

“Employees have a positive opinion of the use of the machine. Everyone is very happy with the results, from the Operators to the Managing Team.”

- Marcelo Azevedo

Huge increase in production  

Among the numerous benefits generated by the new equipment, the number of operators needed at the end of the folding-gluing line has been reduced, allowing them to perform higher value-added activities. While considering the improvement in terms of ergonomics, the whole packing process now becomes more economical.

By reducing the manpower on the packing line along with a boost in packing speed, productivity in the packing process has considerably increased. The installation of Impack packers keeps giving positive results. Indeed, Calheiros Embalagens increased its production around 35% to 40%.  

In an effort to promote a safe working environment, automation in the packing process has its place. Indeed, as there are less operators at the end of the folding-gluing line, interactions between staff members have considerably been reduced.

Future projects

The collaboration between Impack and Calheiros Embalagens is excellent and future projects are being discussed between the two companies. Calheiros Embalagens has become a major European partner for Impack. 

As experts in the design of equipment for folding-gluing lines, Impack continuously increases its presence mainly in Europe and North America but also around the globe. Since 2001, the company keeps innovating  solutions for packing and feeding around folding-gluing lines adapted to the complex needs of the market.