Article: Packaging Dive - June 18, 2024
Two companies have teamed up to debut automated packaging equipment they say is the first of its kind to hit eh market and could be a game changer for e-commerce.
The X5 Nozomi makes and decorates customized, assembled cardboard boxes on demand. It combines the Nozomi single-pass digital inkjet printer for corrugated media from printing equipment manufacturer EFI with the X5 on-demand, rightsized box-making machinery from packaging and equipment supplier Packsize.
The companies designed the integrated technology “for distribution centers, for companies that deliver several products consolidated in one box,” said Evandro Matteucci, vice president and general manager of EFI’s inkjet packaging and building materials businesses. The individual technologies are not new, he said, but together they now they act as subsystems in a broader system.
This type of automated machinery “as an end-to-end solution, with print and die cutting capabilities,” is new to the market, confirmed Jeff Wettersten, vice president of packaging at consultancy Keypoint Intelligence. “There have been products on the marketplace for a number of years now for custom structure size,” he said, but those haven’t offered printing as an additional function.
From start to finish
EFI decided to bring its digital printing technologies into the corrugated market with the introduction of its first Nozomi printer in 2016, Matteucci explained. Then, three years ago, the company “asked, how can we continue to disrupt this market? And we met this company called Packsize,” he said.
Following years of R&D work, the partners unveiled their innovation on May 28 at Drupa, dubbed the largest printing equipment exhibition in the world. The event takes place in Germany every four years.
“It was such an attraction at Drupa. Everybody was looking at this product and wanted to know more,” said Jean Lloyd, a global principal analyst at Keypoint Intelligence, who attended the conference.