The winners of the Metpack Innovation Awards have been announced: Koenig & Bauer MetalPrint receives the popular industry award of the world’s leading trade fair for metal packaging in gold for the innovation MetalControl. Other awards go to Actega and Can Man. The Metpack Innovation Award recognizes outstanding new and further developments in the metal packaging industry every three years. A total of 19 exhibitors submitted 31 entries.
Based on several criteria, the independent international jury of experts determined the winners of this year’s edition of the Metpack Innovation Award. Innovation content, cost savings, as well as quality improvement and sustainability were the decisive factors for the assessment with the help of a points system. The contenders delivered a close neck-and-neck race.
MetalControl is the best innovation
Koenig & Bauer MetalPrint led the field. The Stuttgart/Germany-based world market leader in the field of printing and coating lines, drying systems and exhaust air purification solutions won with a new closed-loop color control system. MetalControl scans each sheet and measures the ink density. The results are transmitted digitally to the control panel, evaluated and the ink zones automatically corrected. The award-winning innovation from Koenig & Bauer MetalPrint is 100% closed-loop color control system within the press offering color stability and consistency, independent of the operator. Manual adjustments are no longer necessary. Complaints, test prints and makeready times are reduced.
ROTARflow in second place
Wesel/Germany-based Actega has launched a new digital solution that monitors the amount of sealant applied to lids by rotating liners and makes immediate adjustments as a result. ROTARflow detects any deviation from the target value of the dry film weight and automatically changes pressure and needle lift accordingly. Downtime and manual interventions are eliminated. Production data is also available from any digital device. ROTARflow reduces cost, material and time input while increasing quality.
PowerCUT SuperFLEX awarded bronze
With the PowerCUT SuperFLEX duplex cutting machine from the Swiss company Can Man, fully automatic format changes are possible in a world record time of 15 minutes. In addition to the enormous time savings, the innovation has another advantage – damage to cutting tools is avoided by eliminating manual operation. The machine also offers maximum flexibility for cutting all formats with high cutting accuracy.
The 2023 jury
The certificates and trophies were presented to the representatives of the winning companies at a ceremony on the second day of Metpack, 3 May 2023. The jury was chaired by Gernot Geldner. Other commission members were Hugo Trappmann, Blechwarenfabrik Limburg; Paul McClure, Gilpin; Gianluca Ciccolini, Gruppo Asa; Axel Schulte, Envases Europe; Hein van Jaarsveld, Trivium Packaging; and Alex Fordham, The Metal Packager.