UK-based Barton Jones Packaging, traditionally a packaging materials distributor, had been considering manufacturing their own corrugated boxes for a number of years. More and more customers were ordering bespoke sized boxes in smaller quantities and on a truly “Just in Time basis”. The result was a need to stock large quantities of many different sized boxes. However, being a distributor by nature, the prospect of having to manufacture in-house was daunting.
Barton Jones Managing Director, Justin Burrell and Sales Manager, Steven Benham visited the Kolbus Autobox manufacturing facility in Houghton Regis to find out more. They also visited several Kolbus Autobox customers with similar installations to the Barton Jones business. Those visits reassured them about the level of engineering excellence and combined with the clearly demonstrated customer support they saw Kolbus Autobox as an ideal long-term supply partner.
The Kolbus Autobox installation at Barton Jones’ Letchworth Garden City based production facility consists of a Kolbus AutoBox AB capable of producing 50 FEFCO styles (many pre-programmed) at speeds up to 800 boxes/hour and Kolbus AutoBox RS (Rotary Slitter), developed to offer a simple yet fast method of cutting and scoring corrugated board ready for box making. The machine can be set up to produce as many as four correct size blanks from a single pass at speeds of up to 120 metres per minute.