Butler Automatic

BUTLER AUTOMAT I C Chip Johns. “We’ve been the tech leaders for many years. Our SP1 splicer is the technological and market leader in the flexible film packaging space. We have a few competitors in the paper handling market; our advantage is that we have a large installed base and a very well- developed, very refined product line.” In addition to its Middleborough facility, the company has a cross-Atlantic parts and service office in Geneva, Switzerland, so it can deploy consultants in various strategic and operational roles throughout North America and Europe. “We sell into a huge variety of verticals – pet food, cheese, coffee, liquids, snack foods, candy, pharmaceuticals, beverages, paper bags, wallpaper, insulation, and oil filters,” adds Johns. “We’re applicable across a wide range of uses because anybody who’s running any kind of roll-fed, continuous operation can utilize splicing to eliminate downtime and increase output. Our biggest target market is bagging and pouching. People are buying lots of different consumables that are being delivered in zippered pouches or bags. That process starts out as a roll of film; the roll of film generally runs out after 60 minutes, when an operator spends 5-25 minutes replacing the roll. Butler splicers eliminate the 5-25 minutes of downtime, providing more output.” The company was founded in 1956 by Richard and Ann Butler who, over the course of three decades, revolutionized news printing with a patented, non-stop, zero-speed splicing technology that had been intended for a different use: that of packaging Kraft cheese. In the 1990s, foreseeing the expansion of delivering consumables in pouches, Andrew Butler, the founders’ son, pivoted the business back towards packaging. Today, the company is a leading multinational manufacturer with over 17,000 units installed worldwide, and a trusted resource when it comes to decreasing roll change downtime. Across the board, the OEE data shows that roll changes are the leading cause of downtime in packaging lines. Butler’s solution is elegantly simple: an automatic splicing technology that joins two rolls of web stock together, without ever