PRINTING United Expo Hot Products Spotlight: Bowe Fusion Speed BOXIT Mail Tray Automation System

(Editor's note: This review of the Bowe Fusion Speed BOXIT Mail Tray Automation, which will debut at the upcoming PRINTING United Expo, is part of an ongoing series featuring longtime industry consultant David Zwang's rundown of his "Must See" products that will be on the show floor.)

Bowe Systec comes to PRINTING United Expo 2023 with the North American debut of their flagship Fusion Speed BOXIT Mail Tray Automation System. It is the fastest of their Fusion series and processes up to 30,000 letters an hour!

Bowe Fusion Speed BOXIT Mail Tray Automation System

This automatic traying system is fully automated from rolled paper in the front of the system, and stacked and loaded #10 or 6x9” envelopes in the hoppers, with sorted and filled trays coming out of the back of the line at 30,000 letters per hour. This speed makes it almost impossible for an operator to keep up with, and that’s where the BOXIT automation comes in. Most intelligent inserting systems are reading a 2D barcode or other code on the mail form. In conjunction with that code, they look it up in the database to gather instructions. Those instructions could be pull insert three and seven for one envelope, and pull two different inserts for the next one. If that second envelope uses the last sheet or last envelope in a tray, it stops at that point, and lets the other envelopes go into the next tray, with color markings or offset stacking to see the tray breaks.

With BOXIT, the pre-sort will be handled automatically and intelligently. Since you know you're not necessarily filling every tray, there could be either a short tray or a tray with two thirds automatically filled, based on a ZIP code break. BOXIT intelligently buffers the envelopes, as necessary, as it is filling. All Fusion Series systems owe their productivity capabilities to their unique Flow-Principle inserting technology, which reduces the actual filling speed by a factor of 4.5 to allow for more time during the inserting process. In spite of this, it actually achieves higher output in the end.

When the tray reaches a certain capacity, it will tamp envelopes down to create more space, and then continue on to fill completely before it exits out and another tray automatically comes in. One postal tray is filled every 30 to 40 seconds. The smart buffering feature during envelope stacking means the machine can continue to run at full speed while a full postal tray is automatically replaced. And if even more automation is called for, Bowe Systec has further automation options such as conveyor systems for automatic onward transport or integral robots to pick up the trays.

With BOXIT, Fusion Speed can be operated by a single person, making it more effective and more attractive to work on the world’s fastest inserting system. Its minimalist design, which focuses on the essentials, doesn’t waste anything — even from a cost perspective, so that the system can be offered at about half the price of comparable products.