CUIR Corrugated Machinery is a French machine manufacturer which specializes in the printing and cutting of corrugated cardboard. Almost 90 years after its foundation, the company is still one of the few players in the world capable of designing, manufacturing, installing and servicing die-cutters, flexographic printing lines, or combined in-line printing and cutting machines.
Led by new CEO Fabien Val Duprez, CUIR has completely revised its automation strategy and chosen Bosch Rexroth as its partner.
“When I took over the company in 2015, automation was developed in-house together with different suppliers. The diverseness of our solutions was a potential source of problems, so in 2017 as part of the development of a new machine, I decided to move to a more standardized solution. We chose Bosch Rexroth after consulting with various potential partners, and I am certain that we made the right choice,” explains Fabien Val Duprez.
Bosch Rexroth provides CUIR with complete motion control solutions that include motors, electric drives and control systems.
“We use new generation motors with hybrid cables, which are more compact and more energy-efficient. For the drives, we use the multi-axis technology ctrlX DRIVE. These drives are combined with a system for recovering and feeding energy back into the company’s grid. For the control system, we opted for openness and standardization, both in terms of software and programming languages and communication protocols. This gives CUIR plenty of flexibility to meet the preferences and needs of its customers,” says Quentin Delaunay, Automation and Motion Control Application Engineer at Bosch Rexroth.
“It is important that our customers do not feel trapped in a technical solution,” adds Fabien Val Duprez. “Furthermore, the technologies and languages used by Bosch Rexroth are taught in engineering schools, which gives us more options when we are looking to recruit automation specialists.”
The speed of integration and start-up, as well as the ease of access to components worldwide, were also important selection criteria for CUIR.
“The Bosch Rexroth brand is a trusted brand for our customers, and the availability of components around the world allows us to service our machines quickly wherever they are,” says Duprez.
Xavier Bigotte, Technical Director of CUIR adds: “We were looking for global, uniform solutions to make our machines easier to integrate, easier to maintain, and more efficient. Bosch Rexroth motors, drives and controls are plug & play components. They can be configured almost automatically, which saves a lot of time when it comes to integration.”
“Register quality is essential in flexographic printing,” explains Xavier Bigotte, adding that “thanks to our new architecture and the quality of Bosch Rexroth control systems, we can increase the level of precision of the axes, and thus improve the printing and cutting quality of our machines.”
Bosch Rexroth has over 40 years of experience in the printing industry and has been able to meet the requirements for precision and repeatability specific to this industry, even on very high-speed machines of up to 700 meters per minute. Bosch Rexroth expertise is now compiled in a library of business functions available to manufacturers to simplify their development.
“Now we can combine precision and repeatability with flexibility. This allows manufacturers to offer machines with a wide variety of formats and transitions from one format to another in a very short time, to make small series production profitable,” says Delaunay.
Fabien Val Duprez concludes the interview by discussing the support from Bosch Rexroth teams: “From the beginning, I felt a desire to get involved and support our development. The teams have been very committed, despite the small size of our company. I want to work hand in hand with competent partners and today I can say that CUIR wants to go even further with Bosch Rexroth. I’m happy to talk about our partnership because for me it is yet another reason to buy a CUIR machine.”
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