At IndiaCorr Expo in Greater Noida in September, German machinery manufacturer Erhardt + Leimer highlighted machines tailored for the corrugation industry. Its products included equipment for paper alignment, such as the ELTrac single facer guiding system, CorrAligner bridge guiding system, ELCorr compensating roller, and ELGuide belt guiding system.
Ahmedabad-based Erhardt + Leimer India is a core partner of Erhardt + Leimer Germany. It serves tyre, rubber, textile, and flexible packaging industries, apart from the Indian corrugation industry, where it has had a consistent presence for more than 15 years.
In India, the company imports major components. Certain parts are, however, manufactured in India at its manufacturing setup in Ahmedabad, Amit Kumar Gupta, senior manager – sales at Erhardt + Leimer India, told Packaging South Asia.
Some products made at the 60-acre Ahmedabad facility – which employs 360 people, including sales, service, and technical personnel – are exported to Germany and China as well.
Gupta said Erhardt + Leimer India has captured 99% market share of the corrugation industry, while it has a 60-70% market share in other industry segments. “German products are renowned for their accuracy and reliability, which differentiates us from companies with similar offerings.”
Erhardt + Leimer India services every corner of India from Ahmedabad, with recent installations in Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Delhi, Jaipur, and Chandigarh.
The enterprise has an established installation base in North India with several notable installations in the Delhi-NCR region. Ghaziabad-based Prem Industries, Gurugram-based Perfect Pack Works, Greater Noida-based Kesho Packaging, and Faridabad-based KCL are its key customers in the capital.
“Aligning the raw material for lamination in corrugation lines is our core business. We offer crucial products for fully and semi-automated corrugation plants. More than 150 corrugation units in India use our systems. While most customers have installed one unit, a few loyalists have 2-3 units,” Gupta said.
Paper alignment equipment
A paper alignment system is a significant component of corrugation lines that ensures precise and accurate bonding of distinct layers of paperboard to create a finished corrugated product.
It employs mechanical components such as side and front gauges, along with sensors and servo controls, to firmly adjust the position of sheets as they move through the machine. Automated systems ensure high lamination accuracy, essential for top-quality finished products. It helps eliminate board warp, bubbles and wrinkles, while ensuring structural integrity and preventing misalignment.
Echardt + Leimer showcased four crucial products for automated paper alignment systems at the show.
The ELTrac single facer guiding system is said to ensure automatic, accurate and instantaneous alignment of the papers in the single-faced web, which creates correct conditions for minimum side trim and maximum deckle utilization. The ELTrac system is available in two variants – the ELTrac Solo and the ELTrac Duo.
The CorrAligner bridge guiding system is said to minimize order change misalignment waste whilst also enhancing corrugator productivity and the quality of the corrugated board.
The ELCorr compensating roller is said to eradicate S-warp by ensuring that equal heat transfer occurs at the various heating cylinders. It has a self-adjusting mechanism driven by paper tension and automatically compensates for thickness variations, which tend to occur during the paper-making process and cause slack edges in the corrugating process.
The ELGuide belt guiding system is said to ensure accurate guiding of the top and bottom double-backer belts. It not only extends the lifetime of the double backer belts but also helps eradicate the costs associated with edge damage caused by belt run-off.
Gupta said that apart from its alignment machines, the company offers tension control systems. The TensionMaster bridge brake system is said to ensure optimum control of machine direction board shape, a key requirement for maximum conversion productivity. The TensionMaster features a closed-loop tension control system, which aims to ensure that target tension values are achieved, regardless of influencing factors such as changes in speed and bridge volume.
