BHS, which makes corrugating machinery, has announced a strategic commercial agreement with Agfa. This will see Agfa supply the printing engines for the BHS Jetliner range of single pass inkjet printers that can be used with the company’s corrugator production equipment.
This dates back to a project that BHS began with Inca Digital, which was first announced back in 2016, at a time when Screen owned Inca. This project began by developing a 2.8 meter wide printbar that could be integrated with a BHS corrugator. It was overseen by Inca’s Screen IJC team, which has now been renamed Agfa IJC following Agfa’s acquisition of Inca Digital in 2022.
The project itself has evolved with the latest incarnation being the BHS Jetliner Xceed. This is a single pass inkjet unit, printing CMYK at speeds up to 300 meters per minute across a 2.8 meter print width. As such, it can print high resolution variable data with full color graphics to both coated and uncoated substrates.
The XCeed is designed to pre-print corrugated rolls, that is printing the top layer which will then be added to the fluting to create the corrugated sheets. It can be used inline with a corrugator or as a standalone printer. BHS has already installed one of these at Mondi Greven in North-West Germany, and is in the process of shipping another to an undisclosed customer.
BHS has pioneered an RSR concept of reel to printed sheets. Nils Gottfried, senior sales manager for BHS digital print, explains, “The RSR concept means that the corrugator and the digital printer are connected, and this is how the machine at Mondi Greven is installed. So they can run inline into the corrugator but they can run roll-to-roll as well. In all the discussions I had in the last four years, it came out that most of the customers would prefer roll-to-roll options.”
The Jetliner Monochrome is a 2.8 meter wide inkjet for use inline with a BHS Corrugator
BHS has also developed a second inkjet model, the Jetliner Monochrome, which is integrated into the corrugator directly. This is designed specifically to be used inline with a corrugator, again with a 2.8 meter print width. Crucially, it’s able to keep up with the corrugator with a maximum speed of 400 meters per minute. The advantage is that high resolution variable data text as well as barcodes and tracking numbers can be added directly at the corrugator stage without needing a separate digital print process. It can be sold with new corrugator systems or integrated into existing lines. The first of these has been installed at a site in North America.
Both Jetliner models use Fujifilm’s Dimatix Samba printhead. Gottfried says, “At the moment this printhead provides us the best speed and quality ratio. The longevity is very good from our experience so far, so it makes sense to use that printhead. We did some tests in the past with other printheads, but at the moment, the Dimatix, is really the best one.”
Inks and primers
The Jetliner modules use water-based inks that comply with the usual standards, including EuPIA and Swiss Ordinance Nestle. Most inkjet print systems are developed around a particular ink but BHS has opted to handle the inks differently as Gottfried explains, “Our approach is to certify the ink makers. So this is one of the big tasks we do internally. We have a team of ink experts and a complete test bench. So we have a smaller scale system of the Jetliner Xceed in our laboratory in Weiherhammer in our factory. There we are certifying ink makers.”
This includes Agfa, which has already developed a water-based ink and primer set for its own SpeedSet packaging printer and is now a certified ink supplier to BHS. Gottfried continues, “We are working at the moment with four of them and we want to certify them all. So there is no fixed ink system for the machine. Our aim is to certify these ink makers, test the combination of their inks that we are certifying and the printheads that we’re using, to make sure that we can assure for the customer the highest quality, high speed and highest uptime printheads.”
The Jetliner Xceed prints four colors, with two printbars per colorGottfried accepts that customers complain that inkjet ink prices are too high, especially when compared with analogue inks, noting, “We always talk about that one percent of what is being printed digitally in the corrugated world at the moment. This will definitely increase over time. So we will bring down the ink prices and we believe that with our approach that there is a choice for customers and there as more ink is available on the market that will bring down the ink prices as well.”
He says that customers like to have a choice of ink suppliers, but adds, “We need to find out what is really the choice for the customers because raw materials are 95% the same so what we need to look at is really, what is the color gamut in the end? We need to look at scratch resistance, of course, because we are printing on paper and that paper is then converted at the corrugator to a corrugated board. So resistance is important and heat resistance, of course, is very important for us. And over-printability, as we are applying a primer, then we print the colors on top and we apply varnish as well.”
The Xceed has eight printbars, using two bars for each color. However, there is space within the machine for up to 12 printbars. Gottfried says this could include colors to extend the color gamut, noting, “That’s something we’re discussing at the moment. but the color gamut we have is already very good, so we don’t really need that. And from our experience in the market, adding more colors is just adding more cost to it as well.”
He adds, “We have requests for white ink, because they are used to it from the analog world. The big question is do we really need that in an industrial scaled-up production process? I don’t think so, because the amount of jobs that demand white is very limited at the moment.”
The Xceed does require a primer, but uses analog rather than digital for this because it’s cheaper, which helps to reduce the overall running cost and cost per box. BHS expects the ink makers to develop their own primer, as Gottfried explains: “We see this as really mandatory at the moment, that this is a combination, that the primer and the ink is from the same ink manufacturer.”
He continues, “What we’ve learned already is that the analog varnish is important as well, but there is not a need to have it from the same maker. There is a big choice in the market, especially in North America. There are a few companies that provide good overprint varnish already for analog applications. We are working as well on the digital varnish.” He adds, “This is the aim to have the choice for the customer, either if you want to apply complete overprint varnish full flood or if you need knockouts or if you want to add value with special spot varnish applications, then we are offering as well additional varnish solutions.”
This shows the Jetliner Monochrome inline with a BHS CorrugatorThe Jetliner Monochrome differs as there is no primer, and no drying system. Instead the water content of the ink is absorbed into the substrate. He says, “The feedback is very good here on the drying capability. In the beginning we thought we could only apply around about 5% of area coverage but we are not looking at that now anymore. We know now that we can apply more ink to it without applying any drying capacity, or putting more energy into the system.”
Software
The BHS corrugator machines are operated via a Corrugator Control Centre or CCC. There’s a separate Printer Control Center or PCC for the Jetliner modules that includes the RIP, with different versions for the Xceed and the Monochrome. Gottfried notes, “For the corrugator and the printer there is a separate control unit, but they interact very, very deeply, especially on the monochrome. Because on the corrugator the customer is creating cut lists of, how they produce corrugated boards. And we’re adding to the cut list, the layout that needs to be printed. and using the cut list information, of course, for that. And in the Printer Control Centre, we are marrying both information, layout and structure information with the cut list information, to be able to produce these corrugated digitally preprinted sheets.”
Essentially this allows many smaller jobs to be ganged together on the same roll. The PCC generates a QR code that is printed alongside each job to ensure that the right graphic ends up on each sheet as needed.
BHS has worked with Agfa to develop the print engine for this Jetliner Xceed inkjet corrugated pressBHS is also developing a workflow solution called PackSuite, which is cloud-based and will be sold as a Software As A Service solution. Gottfried says, “This is a workflow solution and at the moment it has two modules, an editor and a portal. This enables customers to make, create, order and send jobs to the printer to be printed.” It can handle variable data such as QR codes and text and also includes preflighting and error correction.
He adds, “We are in the beginning here, but our aim is to grow that system further to really have a complete workflow solution, for the graphic arts industry and particularly, of course, for the Jetliner Xceed and the Jetliner Monochrome in the future.” It already integrates with the Jetliner PCC and could in future be linked to ERP systems so that job information can be sent direct to the printer.
Market development
There is now a growing number of single pass inkjet presses aimed at the corrugated market. Most use water-based ink, which is much more suitable for packaging. Many vendors see corrugated printing as low hanging fruit, since the substrate is much more forgiving on a water-based ink than flexible film. However, most of these are designed for printing to the finished corrugated sheets. But Gottfried believes that as the digitally-printed corrugated market grows, so the volumes will make roll-to-roll systems more attractive than sheetfed presses.
He argues that converters often think in terms of short runs of boxes but that the PCC software allows many jobs to be ganged together on a single roll, with the software keeping track of where each job is on the roll. He points out, “When we look into North America we see clearly a trend at the moment for roll-to-roll systems so they are going away from sheet-to-sheet systems.” He adds that he personally believes that people use sheetfed systems to explore digital print. “They want to understand how it works. What can they do? What is the application? What can they produce for customers with all the benefits that digital print has? But if they want to switch to a real digital producer, they need to look into a reel-to-reel solution.”
He says that the market is developing faster in the US than in Europe, explaining, “At the moment, we really feel that in North America, the people are more open to talk about investments and to talk about transformation from analog to digital. They really understood that already. There is a lot of systems already installed at the bigger customers, both family owned businesses and multinationals. So we really expect a big push in North America in the next couple of years. Europe is a little bit reluctant due to the economic situation as well. So there’s more discussion in Europe. If you want to talk about digital print, you have a lot of discussions in Europe. in the US, they just do it.”
You can find more information on the Jetliner and the rest of the BHS portfolio from bhs-world.com.
First published on the Printing and Graphics Journal on 15th April 2025. Republished by permission. Www.nessancleary.co.uk
