Building agility and precision into modern packaging production is essential to getting the most out of carton converting, as Ludovico Frati, sales and marketing director, digital at Bobst, details.
In today’s complex and challenging world of packaging production, converting sits at the heart of folding carton manufacturing.
Converting turns a brand’s ingenuity and creativity into reality and brings flat sheets to life as 3D, functional objects. It is the bridge between brand intent and consumer experience.
Understanding converting
To get the most out of converting equipment and processes, it is important to understand where and how the process sits within a multi-stage manufacturing environment. In a standard workflow, brands and their marketing teams dream up the next great product innovation, before designers and creative agencies visualize their ideas and come up with structural designs.
Pre-press teams prepare print-ready artwork and then converting kicks in. Press operators ensure designs are produced at the highest print quality to create visually striking packaging. Embellishment adds a specific look and feel to blanks, with die-cutting and folding and gluing transforming finished sheets into physical shapes.
Then comes filling, packing, distribution, storage, and retailing.
This example workflow tracks the conventional way of converting folding cartons, with each step concurrent and feeding the next. Traditionally, folding carton converting has been a sheet-fed process, dominated by offset printing. More recently, inline processes have gained ground. The balance is shifting in their favor as advances in digital and flexo web-fed technologies reshape production economics and agility.
For example, inline printing and sheeting or inline printing and die-cutting integrate multiple steps into one process and speed up folding carton converting. This makes the process suited to short-run applications where agility and flexibility are paramount (i.e. pharma and personal care), as well as markets where volume is one of most important metrics, such as food and tobacco.
Mastering the fundamentals
Whilst technological advances are streamlining folding carton converting, it remains important to master and control essential parts of the process: control of substrates, precise die-cutting and creasing and efficient folding and gluing. Each is a critical step where performance needs to be optimized, waste is minimized, and quality must be prioritized.
There are three principal technologies in die cutting: flatbed, rotary solid die, and rotary flexible die systems. Each have distinct advantages depending on job length, substrate type, and required precision.
- Flatbed die-cutting is the mainstay of sheet-fed production. This process offers superior cut quality and versatility across substrates. Tooling is robust, relatively inexpensive, and easy to replace, though set-ups can be time-consuming and represent a significant investment, especially for short runs.
- Rotary solid die systems are good for higher throughput – up to 20,000 sheets per hour – and offer exceptional repeatability for long runs but come with higher tooling costs and longer lead times.
- Rotary flexible dies are optimized for short-run work and agile production. They feature minimal set-up time, are a low-cost option, and easy to store and reuse. They are less robust than flatbed and solid dies and are often not suitable for heavier gauge materials.
The correct die-cutting option will depend on material specification, run length, product mix, and end-market requirements. Increasingly, automation, smart registration, and digital control systems are helping converters bridge those trade-offs, achieving faster setup times, reduced waste, and more consistent output.
If die-cutting defines form, folding and gluing bring the pack to life. Modern folder-gluers accommodate a vast array of carton styles, from straight-line and crash-lock bottom boxes to more complex 4- and 6-corner constructions, bottle carriers, and e-commerce formats. Configurations vary but the process typically follows the same core steps: feeding, pre-breaking, folding, gluing, transfer, and delivery.
Automation, camera inspection, and modular machine designs have elevated the role of the folder-gluer from a finishing station to a key contributor to zero-fault production. In premium sectors such as cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and luxury goods, this capability is essential to meeting stringent brand standards and regulatory expectations.
Alongside the hardware, converters must work hard to keep substrates under control and align them with the process steps to ensure effective folding carton converting.
Paperboard and cartonboard are renewable and versatile substrates but present challenges with surface variability. Fiber direction, temperature, and humidity all influence surfaces and how sheets behave during printing, die-cutting, and folding.
As fiber-based materials, those used in folding carton manufacture are hygroscopic and inclined to draw in and absorb any water that exists in the immediate environment in which they are stored and converted. Most often, this is caused by excess condensation and high humidity that can cause sheets to warp, wrinkle, and otherwise deform. Single-pass production solutions minimize the number of steps and exposure of the substrate to external atmospheric conditions, reducing the risk of waste and non-quality.
Understanding grain direction is also particularly important: selecting a long or short grain affects stability, dimensional precision, and the strength of the finished pack. The box layout must also be orientated correctly, according to the grain direction. This differs to web/reel-fed production, where grain direction is a given, and optimizing imposition layout can sometimes be a challenge in terms of keeping production costs low for mid and long runs.
Challenges and opportunities
As technologies evolve and market pressures intensify, mastering the essentials of carton converting has become a strategic imperative for those who want to stay competitive and future-ready.
The folding carton industry today is navigating unprecedented complexity. Converters face pressure from multiple fronts:
- Time-to-market expectations continue to shrink as brands demand faster response and shorter lead times.
- Zero-fault production has become the accepted norm.
- Sustainability and regulatory changes drive material innovation and require traceability across the supply chain.
- Profitability and cost control are under constant strain due to energy prices, raw material costs, and SKU proliferation.
- Labor and skills shortages are creating operational bottlenecks that automation helps to resolve.
At the same time, consumer preferences are evolving toward premium, personalized, and sustainable packaging experiences. This is hastening technology adoption and raising the bar for both print quality and structural design; converting is following suit.
Sheet-fed offset printing remains dominant and is evolving through greater automation, extended color gamut (ECG) printing, and faster changeovers. Options for flexo web-fed processes are expanding too, particularly where embellishment and finishing can be integrated inline. Rotogravure, while still valued for long runs, is losing ground due to lower agility, cost effectiveness, and question marks around sustainability.
Digital: The next frontier
Digital technologies that have been developed and refined in label printing are now entering the folding carton arena at scale. The digital transformation of folding carton converting is not a question of if, but how fast.
Digital printing of cartons is projected to grow with a CAGR far exceeding the industry average of 2.5%. Inkjet alone is set to grow at 11% CAGR through to 2030, having already seen its share of the digital carton market treble from 2015 to 2025. This growth is being driven by the technology’s ability to manage shorter runs, enable versioning, and support faster design-to-market cycles.
Digital printing alone does not guarantee agility. True transformation lies in all-in-one digital converting. These systems integrate printing, embellishment, quality control, cutting and creasing into a seamless, automated flow, which dramatically reduces waste, costs and time-to-market. By consolidating multiple steps into one process, converters can dramatically reduce waste, setup time, handling and production footprint, directly impacting total cost savings.
This all-in-one approach reflects a broader industry shift toward modular, connected production. Machines no longer operate as isolated units but as part of an integrated ecosystem, supported by data analytics, remote diagnostics, and predictive maintenance. The result is greater agility, transparency, and control from file to finished pack.
As converters navigate the next decade, success will depend on mastering three interconnected priorities:
- Precision: Every micron matters in carton converting. Investing in advanced registration, real-time monitoring, and tooling quality ensures consistent, fault-free results.
- Sustainability: Process efficiency and material stewardship are not only environmental imperatives but also business drivers. Minimizing waste and optimizing energy-use translates directly into profitability.
- Speed and agility: With run lengths decreasing and customization rising, flexible production set-ups and digital integration are essential for future growth.
Carton converting may have previously been seen as a technical craft, but today it is a strategic value-adding capability. It shapes how brands deliver value, how converters differentiate, and how packaging aligns with global sustainability and market trends.
The converters who thrive will be those who embrace change and blend the legacy craftsmanship of traditional converting with the intelligence of modern automation and digital systems.
In doing so, they will not only meet today’s challenges but also define the future of packaging production.
