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For over 35 years, Alliance Machine Systems International has provided its customer base with ever-broadening lines of productivity-enhancing products and services. Washington-based Alliance Machine Systems innovates, manufactures, and supports customers in the U.S., Canada, South America, and beyond. As our peers, partners, and customers know all too well, doing business in this ever-changing world, especially over the last 3 years, has come with a unique set of challenges. From gaps in the supply chain, delays in parts manufacturing, and shipping impediments, we know that these factors have impacted our deliverables to our valued customers. Looking to 2024 and beyond, we are committed to listening to our customers and continually improving. We want to strengthen the trust that our customers have had in our business and products over the past decades. With a passion for innovation, Alliance continues to improve and expand our robust line of automation and robotic palletizing options, with advancements such as enhanced End of Arm Tooling for handling die cut work, and adding skew detect capabilities to our systems. One of our robotic offerings, the Raptor XR-RDC, automatically palletizes material exiting the diecutter. With a higher payload robot arm and specially designed tooling, this die cut Raptor can handle larger bundles and improve your process. it also can be parked and operated manually. With improved versatility, the Raptor XR-RDC is flexible to accommodate a wide range of products and has the ability to incorporate automatic tie sheets and complex multi-sheet bottom sheet protection. Alliance aims to continually improve all of our existing products, with these improvements being driven by engineering advances and customer requests. We strive to have product lines that are based on a strong foundation of designs built to last decades, while constantly innovating with new machine options and retrofits for current machines. With improvement comes expansion and innovation.  Recently we introduced our digital prefeeder. This prefeeder is based on our proven FeedMAX platform last year and has single or dual-lane feeding, inverting capabilities, a 90-degree quick corner, and an electric platform design. We also shipped our new Electric Prefeeder, with an Inverter (BPBFe-INV), to one of our valued customers. Alliance is expanding our reach into electric and hybrid machines, which are more efficient for our customers. We are now also building bundle conveyor. Using our history of control and automation, we can build Plastic Belt Conveyor in a number of configurations and sizes to suit consumer needs. We express our gratitude to all our employees for their hard work, dedication, and exceptional talent. We thank all our customers for helping us thriving in the increasingly competitive market and their continued support that empower us to keep growing, innovating, and offering some of the highest productivity machines in the industry. We are grateful for our partnership and commitment to our shared success.

For nearly 40 years, Alliance Machine Systems International has provided its global customer base with ever-broadening lines of productivity-enhancing products and services. Netherlands-based Alliance Machine Systems Europe innovates, manufactures, and supports customers in the Eurozone and beyond. Alliance offers a wide variety of models, types, and sizes of prefeeders.  Each is designed to interface to the full range of Rotary Die Cutters (RDCs), Platen or Flat Bed Die Cutters (FBDCs), top and bottom print Case Makers or Flexo Folder Gluers (FFGs).  Each is specifically engineered with features designed to maximize converting equipment productivity. Rotary die cut lines running 40,000 square meters per hour have become the norm.  Flexibility is the key as our systems are engineered specifically for your production objectives.  They are not “canned” solutions sold as an add-on to a finishing machine.   We can analyze your product mix and design a customized machine center. Recent developments include the electric specialty block feeder (eSBF).  Its modular design allows the mainframe to be interfaced with a bottom print delivery system, or with a high-speed option for a top print application. Alliance draws on the expertise of its global engineering team to create enhancements today that are designed to meet tomorrow’s production requirements. The Inverting Topfeeder (ITF) is the perfect example of this, for board widths up to 2950 mm and speeds up to 30.000 Sheets/hour even in double wall, this prefeeder is designed to outrun every Top Printing Converting Machine in the industry. For Die Cutter Applications The ePALL palletizing platform enables Alliance to offer the very high output from flatbed and rotary die cutters, without compromising stack integrity. For Flexo Folder Gluer Applications Alliance technology for the back end of converting lines provides innovative solutions to keep product flowing at maximum throughput while producing top quality loads of corrugated material. Because of its unique combination of high productivity—up to 2,000 bundles per hour—and extreme flexibility, the Alliance ePALL offers the corrugated industry the widest range of automatic palletizing solutions. It features 4-sided squaring, limited drop height, a dual elevator, and a bottom sheet unit. For ultra-high performance, Alliance also offers the RaptorPAL, and Raptor XR.  Both are robotic palletizing solutions specifically designed for EVOL box-making machine applications. The RaporPAL consists of a robot suspended upside down over a conveyor based palletizing system.  The robot first “sees” the bundle moving down the conveyor, then picks it and repositions it to the proper location prior to entering the layer forming section of the palletizer.  By grabbing and repositioning the bundle “on the fly”, the robot negates the need to stop the conveyor to reposition the bundles. The result is a significant increase in system speed. For applications where a fully automatic palletizer may not be the ideal solution, Alliance offers its semiautomatic loadformer, the eLM. The eLM has a completely electric design and gives the operator the ability to build loads ergonomically, without slowing down converting machines. All of Alliance product lines are based on a foundation of robust designs built to last decades. In many cases, the obsolescence of the controllers doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the life of the machines.   Retrofits and upgrades can add many years to a product’s life. To optimize productivity and evaluate machine condition, machine center specific performance audits are available. Alliance offers a wide range of upgrade options, from minor mechanical and control modifications to complete machine rebuilds. From the prefeeder to the palletizer, Alliance’s innovations streamline product flow and maximize line productivity by delivering excellent speeds, minimal operator interaction and maximum uptime. For more information visit www.alliancellc.com.

As Alliance Machine Systems moves into 2024, we continue to grow and improve our machines, processes, and service. We thank all of the customers who placed their trust in our products and service this past year. We are a proud American manufacturer and build our machines in our Washington State facilities. Future Growth and Challenges The corrugated packaging industry is growing and in light of that growth, Alliance continues to improve service and efficiency and provide new solutions for the industry.  Alliance is combining modern computer technology, advanced industrial robotics, and adaptive vision systems with proven corrugated automation equipment.  From a relatively straight forward semi-automatic LoadMaster, prefeeder, or conveyor and pallet systems, to a fully integrated customized converting line optimized for high production per labor hour, our knowledgeable and experienced sales team can customize a solution to fit your particular needs. Like most industries, manufacturing was affected by pandemic and resulting supply chain issues. The lack of parts and increased shipping time added pressure to produce quality machines in a reasonable time frame for our valued customers. As we move into the new year, we are encouraged by the improving supply chain and increased shipping speeds but know that struggles are still occurring and remain committed to mitigating delays and delivering high quality products to our customers. Prefeeder Innovations At the 2023 CorrExpo, we introduced our Prefeeder Innovations on the “What’s New” stage. This focused on three of our prefeeder offerings: ·       The BPBFe - This machine features a three belt extendo, extendo active track and modular design. Being electrical, it is environmentally friendly and has increased speed and smooth motion profiles. ·       The ITF – The ITF was designed to feed top print machines with a continuous flow capable of keeping up with press speeds up to 500 kick/min with three distinct sizes to fit a wide range of top feeding applications. ·       The Digital Prefeeder – The Digital Prefeeder was designed to present board to the digital press oriented 90 degrees compared to what a traditional press would require. It can also accommodate the digital press dual lane printing capabilities using a specialized extendo. We are also in the process of creating electric versions of our tried-and-true machines and will be introducing those in the future. Looking Forward Looking to the future, Alliance is increasing both capacity and reliability.  To accomplish this our manufacturing business practices are being redesigned with a focus on the future and anticipating disruptions.  Business growth, productivity and capacity goals will not be achieved by just adding more people, but by a commitment to education, training, and ongoing support. “Our focus for 2024 is to build trust. We will do this by improving communications, setting clear achievable expectations and then executing. Just having a great plan doesn’t guarantee the results, so when we recognize a deficiency, we immediately acknowledge and correct it.  Actions are much more powerful than words” – Marius Batrin - President & CEO Our greatest asset is people: those within Alliance, the corrugated industry and our customers. We thank all those who have and continue to place their trust in our products

In today’s world of labor shortages and pressure to do more with less, Alliance Machine Systems International, LLC continues to provide world class solutions to its corrugated customers. The reality is the finishing machine’s productivity is controlled by the surrounding material handling equipment. Recognizing that no two finishing machines run the same mix, Alliance engineers have developed a variety of automation solutions that maximize the productivity of a finishing machine, that runs a given mix. Compared to full line suppliers that supply a fixed architecture, Alliance can mix and match the equipment and engineer a specific solution designed to achieve your specific productivity goals. No two finishing machines run the same mix. Why would you put the same automation behind both? Consider that an additional 10 msf per run hour could deliver $250,000 of additional profit per year. Automation not only improves productivity, but it can also save labor. Many customers are replacing two older, low productivity lines with one automated high productivity line. The new line can be run with two operators whereas the older lines required three operators each. The result is for a three-shift operation, six operators can achieve what took 18 operators previously. At $50K per operator per year, here’s another $600,000 in savings. Recently, Alliance released the latest solution for digital printer prefeeding. Based on our reliable and proven FeedMAX platform, the digital print prefeeder feeds the board into the digital printer on the long dimension and is capable of either inverting or not inverting the board. Additionally, two lanes of board can be fed simultaneously into the digital printer, effectively doubling its throughput. We continue to maintain our focus on productivity-enhancing technical innovations, such as bottom sheet systems that use vision technology to scan random-size dunnage and automatically compute the number of sheets required to ensure exact placement of each sheet and obtain the coverage needed. Our patented TEDD sheet deceleration technology in the UltraSTACK RDC stacker/palletizer permits running at full speed without a shingle, allowing exact bundle counts without a feed interrupt. Our J&L Mark5 XT jumbo series specialty folder gluer can fold and glue boxes up to 210 inches wide. With more than 18,000 installations around the world, our team of engineers offers technical expertise across the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and our customers are backed by a robust customer care staff who provide dedicated installation, training, service, parts, and other support. Contact your local Alliance sales representative to find out how we can help you achieve your labor and productivity objectives,

Did you know that Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood? Alliance has a long history of hosting employee blood drives in partnership with our local blood bank to help make a difference in the community. Alliance hosted the most recent blood drive on February 20th, 2023, where 30 units were collected. While the drives have been going on for longer, the records from our blood bank partner date back to 2004. Over the 19 years since, 1698 units have been collected from Alliance employee drives. These units have impacted up to 5094 people in our community. *Every day in the U.S., patients in hospitals, surgical centers and emergency treatment facilities need approximately: 29,000 units of red blood cells 5,000 units of platelets 6,500 units of plasma Alliance employees are [proud to be a part of making a real difference in the lives of those who need support! *Information from our blood bank partner, Vitalant.

Alliance Machine Systems Offers Material Handling Solutions For nearly 40 years, Alliance Machine Systems International has provided its global customer base with ever-broadening lines of productivity-enhancing products and services. Netherlands-based Alliance Machine Systems Europe innovates, manufactures, and supports customers in the Eurozone and beyond. Alliance offers a wide variety of models, types, and sizes of prefeeders. Each designed to interface to the full range of Rotary Die Cutters (RDCs), Platen or Flat Bed Die Cutters (FBDCs), top and bottom print Case Makers or Flexo Folder Gluers (FFGs). Each is specifically engineered with features designed to maximize converting equipment productivity. Rotary die cut lines running 40,000 square meters per hour have become the norm. Flexibility is the key as our systems are engineered specifically for your production objectives. They are not “canned” solutions sold as an add-on to a finishing machine. We can analyze your product mix and design a customized machine center. Recent developments include the electric specialty block feeder (eSBF). Its modular design allows the mainframe to be interfaced with a bottom print delivery system, or with a high-speed option for a top print application. Alliance draws on the expertise of its global engineering team to create enhancements today that are designed to meet tomorrow’s production requirements. For Die Cutter Applications The ePALL palletizing platform enables Alliance to offer the very high output from flatbed and rotary die cutters, without compromising stack integrity. For Flexo Folder Gluer Applications Alliance technology for the back end of converting lines provides innovative solutions to keep product flowing at maximum throughput while producing top quality loads of corrugated material. Because of its unique combination of high productivity—up to 2,000 bundles per hour—and extreme flexibility, the Alliance ePALL offers the corrugated industry the widest range of automatic palletizing solutions. It features 4-sided squaring, limited drop height, a dual elevator, and a bottom sheet unit. For ultra-high performance, Alliance also offers the RaptorPAL, and Raptor XR. Both are robotic palletizing solutions specifically designed for EVOL box-making machine applications. The RaporPAL consists of a robot suspended upside down over a conveyor based palletizing system. The robot first “sees” the bundle moving down the conveyor, then picks it and repositions it to the proper location prior to entering the layer forming section of the palletizer. By grabbing and repositioning the bundle “on the fly”, the robot negates the need to stop the conveyor to reposition the bundles. The result is a significant increase in system speed. The Raptor XR is a robot combined with a twin box slitter (TBS) and upstream bundle collecting system can process 800 cases per minute. It’s the perfect technology to maximize the performance of an EVOL focused on E-commerce cases. For applications where a fully automatic palletizer may not be the ideal solution, Alliance offers its semiautomatic loadformer, the eLM. The eLM has a completely electric design and gives the operator the ability to build loads ergonomically, without slowing down converting machines. All of Alliance product lines are based on a foundation of robust designs built to last decades. In many cases, the obsolescence of the controllers doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the life of the machines. Retrofits and upgrades can add many years to a product’s life. To optimize productivity and evaluate machine condition, machine center specific performance audits are available. Alliance offers a wide range of upgrade options, from minor mechanical and control modifications to complete machine rebuilds. From the prefeeder to the palletizer, Alliance’s innovations streamline product flow and maximize line productivity by delivering excellent speeds, minimal operator interaction and maximum uptime.

Alliance Helps Improve Productivity for Box Plants Happy New Year from the team at Alliance. We thank all of our customers for placing their trust in Alliance products and systems. After a couple of very robust and hectic years, we believe the machinery segment will cool as customers digest the capacity purchased in 2021 and 2022. We see GDP cooling and interest rates rising to 10-year highs. GDP is important to the integrateds who fund the projects from cash flow, and interest rates are important to the independents who usually finance their projects. Alliance Application Engineers have been helping box makers advance finishing equipment speeds and productivity, contributing to the growth of the corrugated industry. Our team of Development Engineers has created innovative and productive solutions to handle a wide variety of box production needs, from small e-commerce containers to jumbo-sized specialty boxes. Our customers look to us to help them maximize profits, and we take that responsibility seriously. Alliance offers high-speed upstream feeding and downstream handling systems that range from semi-automatic, operator-assisted machines to fully automatic equipment that frees operators for other duties. Whether making 800 boxes per minute on high-speed flexo folder gluer or maximizing the die cut area of a rotary die cutter, our products include fully automated robotic load formers, palletizers, stackers, prefeeders, pallet handlers, specialty folder gluers, and more. After a very strong showing in 2022 for sales on back-end automation that trend seems to be continuing in that direction. Automation not only improves productivity, but it can also save labor. Many of our customers are replacing two older, low-productivity lines with one automated high-productivity line. The new line can be run with two operators whereas the older lines required three operators each. The result is for a three-shift operation, 12 operators can achieve what took 18 operators to run two lines previously. At $75K per operator per year, here’s another $450,000 in savings. What was unique about 2022 vs previous years was that, instead of focusing on one, our focus shifted towards all segments of palettizing. Alliance sold all 4 models: The high-performing Raptor 4x2, the Raptor RDC for die-cut palletizing, UltraPAL, and the cross-functional RaptorPAL. Recently, Alliance released the latest solution for digital printer prefeeding. Based on our reliable and proven FeedMAX platform, the digital print prefeeder feeds the board into the digital printer on the long dimension and is capable of either inverting or not inverting the board. Additionally, two lanes of board can be fed simultaneously into the digital printer, effectively doubling its throughput. In the early fall of this year, we will be launching our New Electric Prefeeder. We continue to maintain our focus on productivity-enhancing technical innovations, such as bottom sheet systems that use vision technology to scan random-size dunnage and automatically compute the number of sheets required to ensure exact placement of each sheet and obtain the coverage needed. With more than 16,000 installations around the world, our team of engineers offers technical expertise across the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and beyond backed by a robust customer care staff who provide dedicated installation, training, service, parts, and other support. Alliance’s mission is to build trust and create value for our customers, seek new ways to innovate, employ positive communication, and operate with integrity. In today’s world of labor shortages and pressure to do more with less, Alliance Machine Systems International, LLC continues to provide world class solutions to all our corrugated customers.

Alliance has added QR code printing capabilities to its J&L specialty folder gluer machines. Currently, many box makers must print the codes as an additional step. Alliance's one-pass operation can print codes prior to or after folding the box and can print up to three codes in a 9-inch area at speeds up to 1,000 feet per minute. Printing QR codes directly onto a box, in a variety of possible locations either inside or outside, can increase tracking and traceability. System Specifications include 300 dpi resolution, various ink types, a camera system for quality control and more. Print sizes range from 22 to 50 millimeters. Contact us for more information, info@alliancellc.com.

Alliance outlines its material handling solutions in the June/July 2021 issue of Corrugated Today. "Whether a plant is running a high-speed flexo folder-gluer at 800 boxes per minute or a 30-year-old 50-inch flexo plodding along at 4500 boxes per hour, Alliance has the right automatic loadforming technology for any application." Solutions include: Raptor XR loadformer for high-speed flexos, rotary diecutters, and specialty gluers Raptor XR loadformer for medium speed, 50-inch flexos RaptorPAL high performance pit-less robotic palletizer Read the article:

Alliance introduces the inverting top feeder (ITF), an automatic prefeeder designed for mini and mid-size top-printing converting machines. It is rated at 500 kicks per minute. Key Features Accommodates incoming stacks up to 79 inches tall Variable height shingle gate with prehopper tampers Automatic stack centering Deluxe waste removal system Enhanced diagnostics All electric Higher speeds Smaller footprint Contact us for more information. For information on Alliance's prefeeder line, visit www.alliancellc.com/prefeeders.

The J&L Mark5 XT specialty folder gluer by Alliance Machine is featured in the May/June 2021 issue of Corrugated Today. "Alliance Machine Systems International’s J&L specialty folder-gluer debuted 31 years ago with the primary objective of being the most versatile machine of its kind in the corrugated market. With more than 250 installations, all of those folder-gluers are still in operation today." Learn more here. Read the article:

Rand-Whitney's success is profiled in the May/June 2021 issue of Corrugated Today. The company's new Apstar rotary die cutter includes an automated back-end solution by Alliance that utilizes an UltraBREAK bundle breaker and UltraPAL automatic palletizer. "The UltraBREAK maximizes the width of the diecutter, which is 126 inches, and the UltraPAL facilitates higher run speeds more consistently than a manual load former," the article says. Learn more about Alliance bundle breakers and palletizers. Read the Corrugated Today article: