React and Adapt

What do you do when you have established tried-and-true converting methods and along comes a new innovation? You react and adapt. Some suppliers of folding and gluing equipment have already done so with their product offerings.

In light of new European standards requiring Braille application on every pharmaceutical carton, companies like Bobst Group North America and American International Machinery (A.I.M.) have incorporated this technology in their product offerings. “A.I.M. is expecting this European trend to move here to the U.S. very soon, and has uncovered a low-cost, high-speed process that will apply Braille to the product as it is being produced on the folder-gluer,” says Jeff Wilcox, A.I.M. technology manager. “Formerly, the Braille application process was done exclusively on the diecutter machine. This method has a time-consuming makeready, and it created products that were thicker on one edge and could pose a feeding problem on the folder-gluer machine. Moving the process to the folder-gluer machine makes more sense and is a less time consuming makeready.”