Digital Process Automation in Printed Packaging – Cartoveneta Chooses Zünd Q-Line with BHS180

Based in Scorzè near Venice, Cartoveneta APCI is a family-run packaging manufacturer that employs around 60 people. Founded in the 1960s by Bruno Michieletto, the Michieletto family has been managing the company for three generations. It has become a successful supplier of custom corrugated packaging and display solutions – from traditional shipping and pizza boxes to high-end POS/POP.

Cartoveneta’s particular strength lies in digital print for packaging. Packaging and displays are printed in small and medium runs with high quality, personalized designs, and the flexibility to meet specific customer needs. Digital printing technology, maximum production flexibility, and a commitment to sustainability are deeply embedded in the company’s DNA. As the company began to scale digital production, downstream processes such as cutting threatened to become a bottleneck. Investing in a Q-Line with BHS180 took care of this problem: “With 15 production lines, we produce everything related to corrugated cardboard – from micro-flute to triple-wall – and we do so sustainably. And sustainability is a cornerstone of our company. Everything we manufacture is 100% recyclable. This makes Q-Line with BHS180 a perfect fit,” explains Stefano Michieletto, co-owner of Cartoveneta.

Demand for digitally printed packaging and displays keeps growing. Brands want to stand out, promotions are planned on shorter notice, and variable, special-offer campaigns are becoming more common. For Cartoveneta, this translates into:

• many different designs and formats in corrugated cardboard
• smaller batch sizes with frequent job changes
• Very tight tolerances for print-to-cut registration
• short lead times and competitive manufacturing costs

With the Q-Line 32-32 D with BHS180 from Zünd, Cartoveneta has chosen a cutting system that is designed to meet these requirements perfectly. This highly automated digital cutting solution combines:

• high processing speed
• fully automated, pallet-to-pallet material handling
• QR-code-based intelligent job control
• Integrated UNDERCAM registration system, developed specifically for digitally printed packaging

Another unique selling point of the Q-Line with BHS180 is the way it handles varying batch sizes and different materials – an everyday scenario in digitally printed packaging.

•  Job data is linked directly to each sheet or board through QR codes.
• The system retrieves the information and ensures that different jobs are correctly queued and automatically executed with the specified processing methods.

This allows Cartoveneta to combine different packaging types, materials, or designs in a single stack measuring up to 180 cm tall and produce them automatically with consistenly high quality. The Q-Line demonstrates its strengths exactly where Cartoveneta excels: in a broad portfolio of digitally printed packaging and displays that demands exceptional flexibility and short response times.

Zünd’s Q-Line achieves very high production speeds thanks to its dual-beam technology, explains CAD/CAM Designer Denis Pesce: “By splitting the work surface into two sections, two boards (each measuring up to 3.2 x 1.6 m / 10.6 x 5.3 ft) can be processed at the same time. As a result, it can produce at least twice as much as any cutter in the same class.” With job changes, registration processes, and material handling all digitally controlled, Cartoveneta can also run the system unattended overnight. Jobs start automatically, different orders are neatly separated and stacked, and everything is ready by morning for downstream processing.

As impressive as the hardware is, Cartoveneta believes that much of the value lies in software and file preparation:

• Contours are optimized, cut paths shortened.
• Repetitive tasks are automated
• The entire cutting process is data-driven

After about a year of operating the Q-Line with BHS180, Cartoveneta has drawn initial conclusions: Depending on the application, the Q-Line with BHS180 delivers at least double—and in some cases even triple—the output of comparable cutting solutions – while maintaining consistent or even better quality. The ability to run automated production overnight eases pressure on daytime operations, increases equipment utilization, and creates capacity to fulfill customer requests on short notice.