AUBURN, Mass. - Kadant Solutions, a division of Kadant Inc. (NYSE:KAI), announced Thursday it received an order for two Octopus™ stock approach systems for a coated duplex board machine in Japan. Coated duplex board is typically used as packaging material for small boxes that require high quality printability, such as consumer electronic products, food packaging, pharmaceuticals, and other consumer merchandise. It can also be used in combination with high-performance corrugating medium and linerboard for the outer layer of corrugated packaging.

First introduced in 1995, the Octopus system has been successfully used to supply vats, hydraulic formers, and both air pad and hydraulic headboxes with uniform flows across the width of the paper machine without the need for recirculation. The flat basis weight profile allows the mill to improve sheet quality and reduce energy and fiber costs. The Octopus system will be used in place of conventional tapered inlets to reduce cross-machine variation and to control overall sheet profile.

As basis weight supplied to each zone of the forming device is a function of flow and consistency, cross-directional basis weight is controlled by the Octopus stock approach system's ability to vary consistency in each supply zone. Consistency control of each zone is controlled off-machine, allowing operators to make profile corrections safely while the paper machine is in operation.