How a 5 Ply Automatic Corrugated Box Making Plant Actually Works

Whether for commercial transportation, or for industrial packaging, one of the most common materials we use today is corrugated cardboard boxes. These are light weight and cheap, while offering just enough support and protection for easy transportation and handling. Even protected boxes made of harder materials are further packed into corrugated material for better grip while handling and easy labeling! So what goes on within a 5 ply automatic corrugation plant? How are these materials made in such vast quantities at such a cheap rate?

The story begins at the recycling factories, and a large stock of recycled paper pulp and soft wood chips. The recycled paper and woodchips are milled for weeks before they are made in cardboard. However, this material is not quite the stiff cardboard we see and touch every day -used to make everything from food cartons to transportation crates. It needs to be further treated in a complete automatic corrugated box making plant before becoming a usable packaging material. Luckily, these heavy duty industrial machines can handle any kind of tough paper sheets that your local recycling mills can produce. The best machines operate on several manual control and automated systems to change the type of material being made.

The manufacturing system starts with the milling rolls and single facer units which make the first sheets by pasting different sheets of recycled paper into the appropriate thickness. The thickness is measured in 'flutes' by international standards; ranging from 'A' to 'F' flute, and measuring between 4.8 mm and 0.8 mm in thickness according to requirements. Several thick sheets are then combined with a special folding and pasting format to produce corrugated boxes. The sheets are usually milled across three different sets of rollers and folders, each of which adds a distinct layer before the layers are pasted together in the final mill. While most automatic corrugated box machine plants are 3 ply systems for rolling and pasting; a 5 ply system includes a special die cutting assembly, as well as a separate glue making plant.

If you look closely at a corrugated box material, you will notice that it has several different layers of cardboard fused together in proper shape and order. This is done over several different pasting processes. The extreme outer and inner layers are usually laminated with different materials; and food grade cartons even have additional layers of metal and polythene lamination as finishing. A 5 ply automatic corrugation plant works on an integrated control panel, though there are 5 distinct processes happening in a uniform assembly for the end product of perfect packing material. This makes an automatic corrugated box making plant a massive unit, which is also a considerable investment. Not only do several consumer goods companies have their own packaging material production units; but several companies who specialize in manufacturing packaging materials also have these large integrated systems.