are everywhere, carrying products from all over the world and just down the street. Your favorite pizza probably comes delivered in a brightly colored corrugated box. Your little brother or sister might use a big corrugated washer, dryer or dishwasher box for a playhouse. You might flatten and collect corrugated boxes for recycling. Where do all those boxes come from?
Do boxes come in boxes?
Boxes are about the only product not often shipped in boxes. They’re usually shipped in bundles. They are made in special factories called “box plants.” Corrugated boxes are designed to be very strong. They are made of corrugated paperboard, which is different from the stiff paper known as “cardboard.” Look at the edge of corrugated paperboard, and you will see a row of air columns. The air acts as a cushion, while the paper columns make the material strong.
Each box is made to hold something just right, protect it from banging around, and keep it from spilling. Boxes are made with important information printed on them about what’s inside, or how to lift or move them. Carefully designed inserts hold items in place so they won’t spill or become damaged.
How many ways are there to build a box?
There’s a box for practically every purpose, and building it begins when the box-plant salesperson asks the box-buying customer just what kind of box is needed, how many, and how soon?
Then a box designer starts planning. He or she has plenty to consider: the size and shape of the customer’s product, the size and shape of the finished box, the strength of the material it’s made of, the color of the corrugated board, the size of the flutes or paper ridges within it, the number of boxes to be made, the coatings and printing they’ll bear, and just when they need to be made and shipped. How will the customer put the box together, fill it, and close it? How will the customer’s customer open the box? Will the product-filled box be moved by hand or by fork lift? Stacked in tall piles or singly? How roughly will it be treated?
A computer helps crunch the numbers. The box designer adds human creativity and insight. The design, drawn on paper or a computer screen, might look like a puzzle.
I worked for a summer in a "box factory." Interesting place, although it was a sauna in there and the working conditions were less than ideal. One one end was a warehouse filled with huge rolls of paper that we unloaded off rail cars almost daily. Basically you just had the unbleached brown paper and bleached white paper. The white came in different gloss levels and all rolls had different thicknesses. From there those rolls were fed into a machine about the length of a football field which did the corrugating. A corn starch product glued layers of paper to a middle corrugated chunk of paper. Here the thickness of the corrugation (flute) was selected and finally the end product was cut to specified size and sent over to the production side. At production there were huge machines that cut and scored the corrugated paper to size. Other machines would print any writing or graphics on the boxes and still others would fold and glue the boxes. Some more modern equipment could do all 3 steps on the same machine. There was also an expensive machine that could literally print photo quality pictures onto boxes. From there it would get stacked into bundles, shrink wrapped and sent to the shipping warehouse. Overall a massive operation.
I've been watching "How It's Made" on the Discovery Channel. (Yes, there was a segment on corrugated boxes.) The funny things are: the announcer's voice. (He went through the entire ambulance piece saying 'ambuLANCE' -- accent on the last syllable. Weird.) And, bullshit. Like, "The lawnmower has smaller wheels on the front, which will help the mower when going over irregular terrain."
Huh ??
Jun 29, 09 8:37 pm ·
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How are corrugated boxes made?
Corrugated boxes
are everywhere, carrying products from all over the world and just down the street. Your favorite pizza probably comes delivered in a brightly colored corrugated box. Your little brother or sister might use a big corrugated washer, dryer or dishwasher box for a playhouse. You might flatten and collect corrugated boxes for recycling. Where do all those boxes come from?
Do boxes come in boxes?
Boxes are about the only product not often shipped in boxes. They’re usually shipped in bundles. They are made in special factories called “box plants.” Corrugated boxes are designed to be very strong. They are made of corrugated paperboard, which is different from the stiff paper known as “cardboard.” Look at the edge of corrugated paperboard, and you will see a row of air columns. The air acts as a cushion, while the paper columns make the material strong.
Each box is made to hold something just right, protect it from banging around, and keep it from spilling. Boxes are made with important information printed on them about what’s inside, or how to lift or move them. Carefully designed inserts hold items in place so they won’t spill or become damaged.
How many ways are there to build a box?
There’s a box for practically every purpose, and building it begins when the box-plant salesperson asks the box-buying customer just what kind of box is needed, how many, and how soon?
Then a box designer starts planning. He or she has plenty to consider: the size and shape of the customer’s product, the size and shape of the finished box, the strength of the material it’s made of, the color of the corrugated board, the size of the flutes or paper ridges within it, the number of boxes to be made, the coatings and printing they’ll bear, and just when they need to be made and shipped. How will the customer put the box together, fill it, and close it? How will the customer’s customer open the box? Will the product-filled box be moved by hand or by fork lift? Stacked in tall piles or singly? How roughly will it be treated?
A computer helps crunch the numbers. The box designer adds human creativity and insight. The design, drawn on paper or a computer screen, might look like a puzzle.
I worked for a summer in a "box factory." Interesting place, although it was a sauna in there and the working conditions were less than ideal. One one end was a warehouse filled with huge rolls of paper that we unloaded off rail cars almost daily. Basically you just had the unbleached brown paper and bleached white paper. The white came in different gloss levels and all rolls had different thicknesses. From there those rolls were fed into a machine about the length of a football field which did the corrugating. A corn starch product glued layers of paper to a middle corrugated chunk of paper. Here the thickness of the corrugation (flute) was selected and finally the end product was cut to specified size and sent over to the production side. At production there were huge machines that cut and scored the corrugated paper to size. Other machines would print any writing or graphics on the boxes and still others would fold and glue the boxes. Some more modern equipment could do all 3 steps on the same machine. There was also an expensive machine that could literally print photo quality pictures onto boxes. From there it would get stacked into bundles, shrink wrapped and sent to the shipping warehouse. Overall a massive operation.
why? because ctrl-c and ctrl-v are there.
And the Academy Award for best rhetorical question on an on-line forum goes to.....
I always thought you just put a corrugated in a plain old box, thus transforming it into a 'corrugated box'.
spam
I've been watching "How It's Made" on the Discovery Channel. (Yes, there was a segment on corrugated boxes.) The funny things are: the announcer's voice. (He went through the entire ambulance piece saying 'ambuLANCE' -- accent on the last syllable. Weird.) And, bullshit. Like, "The lawnmower has smaller wheels on the front, which will help the mower when going over irregular terrain."
Huh ??
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