Business : Testing, Certification & Business Tools News

Presentation delivery: 10 things to remember

Some of us are natural born presenters, and when we stand up and take the mic, everyone knows to be silence. This is our time, and the audience listen, because they are confident that what is about to come is going to be the words that inspire a nation, inspire

Read More »

Top Tips for Starting Your Own Construction Business

Construction is one of those businesses which always needs more hands. Whether you are pitching for big corporate contracts or simply taking on small jobs in people’s homes, there are plenty of opportunities if you know where to look. Here are some top tips to help you get started if

Read More »

Brand strategy

Having just some uncertain ideas and a logo of your company is not enough to say that it is a brand strategy. To succeed one should have a written plan in details to gain results and understand what should be taken. 3 questions each brand should ask itself before planning

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Creating Your Dream Restaurant? Here are a Few Tips

If you have always wanted to open your own restaurant, then you know what it’s like to fantasize over dishes, atmosphere, desserts, and to or to not have a live band performance area. However, it takes a lot to create the perfect restaurant. Many entrepreneurs have tried to become restaurant

Read More »

Why holidaymakers are choosing Malaga airport as their destination

Malaga airport sees around 19 million visitors each year, and is Spain’s fourth largest airport after Madrid, Barcelona and Palma de Majorca. So why are so many people choosing Malaga as the destination of choice for this year’s holiday? Well the simple answer is that Malaga airport is perfectly situated

Read More »

Get your brand out there: Kite Packaging expands custom printed tape range

Leading UK packaging supplier, Kite Packaging, has relaunched its custom tape offering, focusing on improved user experience through new technology as a part of the order process. The employee-owned business has also significantly expanded the range of packaging tapes that customers have available to brand.   Businesses throughout the UK

Read More »

Kite Packaging introduces new hand pallet wrap bundle offer

Pallet wraps are made of a highly elastic plastic film made from linear low-density polyethene (LLDPE). The plastic wrap tension after application protects the contents stored in a pallet during transit. Stored items remain together in the pallet. Pallet wraps are designed to reduce damage and loss of products. Kite’s

Read More »

Kite Packaging introduces dynamic gummed paper tape dispenser

As its environmental drive continues to flourish, employee-owned business, Kite Packaging, has developed a new gummed paper tape dispenser to add to its online offering. The new machine is another innovative addition for the Kite team, one that enables its customer base to seal cartons with eco-friendly paper tape, therefore

Read More »
Latest Issue
Issue 339 : Apr 2026

Business : Testing, Certification & Business Tools News

Presentation delivery: 10 things to remember

Some of us are natural born presenters, and when we stand up and take the mic, everyone knows to be silence. This is our time, and the audience listen, because they are confident that what is about to come is going to be the words that inspire a nation, inspire a generation, or help to start a revolution. Perhaps, as opposed to being like Mr Motivator, we are more like Mr Bean when we take the stage. For us, being asked to say a few words at a wedding is our idea of hell — slowly turning into a 2002 Marshal Mathers, ‘knees weak, arms heavy’. For those of us who are not natural-born presenters, a professional public speaking coach can help us develop the skills and confidence we need to command the attention of an audience. With the right guidance, anyone can learn to inspire, motivate, and persuade through public speaking. Standing up in front of a group of people and speaking doesn’t come naturally to most, but we are here to help. Here are your top ten tips to help you deliver the perfect presentation, without hearing the tumbleweed blow past. Seconds count Imagine you’re robbing a bank, you aren’t going to take the time to introduce yourself, you need to grab the attention of the teller and get out of there. A presentation is no different, get in, and with a piranha-like bite, you attack, ensuring your audience hones in. Often you are going to be using a digital presentation that will include your topic title, and they will already know your name. ‘Different’, in this circumstance, is detrimental. Understandable It may seem like a given, but the major failings of most speeches are that the audience simply cannot understand it. The best speeches in the history of time were delivered succinctly and weren’t overflowing with jargon. The biggest mistake one can make is to overcomplicate the language used — it doesn’t simply confuse the listener, but it will more than likely cause you to trip up as well. Why me? As much as we might not like to accept it, no one in life owes us anything — it is up to us to earn their attention. We cannot expect to warrant someone’s appreciation straight off the bat, simply because of who we are. They are going to give up their precious time to listen to us, but why should they? Tell them of your experience in the area, and reason why you are the one standing up to make the presentation as opposed to them. Attention If you are expecting your audience to pay attention to you, you need to pay attention to them. That said, learn your presentation, or at the very least, the basic structure beforehand. Yes, off-the-cuff might work for one in a thousand, but no one wants to listen to someone stumble their way through their presentation with Mr Blobby-like co-ordination. Rehearsing a handful of times in front of family, friends, or even the mirror, will give you the confidence to act upon their reactions, as opposed to aimlessly talking to a screen. Timing No one is here to suggest that a slide of a PowerPoint should take an hour, but if you try and rush through the first slide, by the second you will have lost all your audience in transit. Take a step back when you are initially planning your presentation: work out exactly how many ideas you wish to propose and assign an appropriate amount of time to each. Similarly, breathing can be incredibly under-rated — don’t starve yourself of oxygen. Emotion No one wants to walk out after a presentation and think, ‘well there goes half an hour of my life I’m never going to get back’. Therefore, add at least the tiniest portion of emotion. You don’t have to put in a performance deserving of an Oscar but showing your audience you are interested in what you’re speaking about is essential —if you don’t care, how can you expect them to? Obviously, we won’t always be tasked with speaking about a topic we would die for, but by racking your brain and coming up with why it’s important to you, you’ve certainly made a start. Gauge your audience Not many of us would have the same conversation with our mother and grandmother as we would do in the pub on a Saturday afternoon after football. The reason we don’t is because we can successfully take heed of our audience — and a presentation is no different. Jokes are often inappropriate in a presentation, but if you’re going to use them, at least make sure they are going to be understood. Imagery Using pictures and diagrams throughout your presentation can be a fantastic method of grabbing attention, as an overload of text can often prove to be challenging to divulge, particularly if it’s a large group. However, if you are going to go down the road of using images, make sure that they can be easily seen and interpreted. The sheer quality of a picture can act as a make or break for the entire success of your presentation. Tell a story This is something that many people will struggle to do — it requires a lot of creativity. Rather than telling jokes, this can be the perfect way to get your audience laughing, and for that, they will remember you. Your story can be whatever you want because it’s your story. Make the detail as extravagant as you like, just be confident that the content of the story relates to the purpose of your presentation. The end What the audience will hear at the end is the first thing they are going to remember afterwards. It is no surprise that the cliché of ‘going out with a bang’ has stuck around for so long — because if we don’t, we’ll be forgotten in a flash. Article provided by Where The Trade Buys, a print company offering professional

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Top Tips for Starting Your Own Construction Business

Construction is one of those businesses which always needs more hands. Whether you are pitching for big corporate contracts or simply taking on small jobs in people’s homes, there are plenty of opportunities if you know where to look. Here are some top tips to help you get started if you are thinking about launching your own construction business. Know When to Hire Help You may be tempted to be a kind of jack-of-all-trades, especially in the early days of the business. However, that could lead to some costly mistakes on your part. Promising to handle someone’s shower refit when you are not qualified can be extremely dangerous and could land you in serious trouble. Cultivate a network of qualified freelance professionals who can help with certain jobs. They can bring you the expertise you need and the satisfaction of a job well done way before you are in the position to hire people for yourself. Get Quality Tools As a member of the construction industry, your tools are the most important thing in your life. You want to buy a set of high-quality tools which will last for years and they don’t always come cheap. Luckily for you, there is a range of loans out there to help with specifically this issue. Look into taking one out to help with your tool acquisition. You can even use it to buy some of the larger pieces of equipment if you need. Sort Out Van Hire In the early days, you may not have the necessary vehicle to help you get around between jobs. Your car may be sufficient at first but if you have a large piece of equipment to transport or some bulky supplies, you may need to secure other transport. Van leasing is the perfect option here. You can lease a van for however long you need and you will have minimal fees to pay compared to if you actually bought a van for the business. Source Suppliers The best construction companies have different suppliers they can go to when they need to get something for their jobs. With the right contacts, you will be able to hunt down whatever your client desires for their build. Additionally, if you build up repeat business with these suppliers, you may be able to grab yourself a repeat-customer discount. Deals like these will be invaluable to you when it comes to turning a profit and offering your customers the best deals possible to drive up business. Starting your own construction firm has many ups and downs, but if you manage to meet all the demands then you could have a very profitable business in front of you. Work hard and make sensible choices and watch as your business grows. Something which starts as you with a single toolbox and a car could grow into a full crew ready to build a house from the ground up if you have the drive to make it happen.

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Brand strategy

Having just some uncertain ideas and a logo of your company is not enough to say that it is a brand strategy. To succeed one should have a written plan in details to gain results and understand what should be taken. 3 questions each brand should ask itself before planning any activity: Who are your clients? What is the message of your brand? How do you understand “success” in long-term perspective for your brand?   Answering these questions, this initial step, will help you to define your goals, needs of your clients, methods of talking to them and the tools you will use to estimate your success. There is no one and only definition of brand strategy but generally it covers the following aspects: meaning of your brand; its promises; type of personality your brand broadcasts.   So, to boost your revenue and promote your brand try online advertising network as example https://polus.media/ These moments are hardly trackable, but, nevertheless, very important. It becomes more evident when we start talking about brand’s mood. If we talk about big companies it is an often case to invite two different teams to develop each side of the brand, we don’t know why, but they do not often meet together and we may have contradicting results at the end. In some sense, one can say that brand strategy is relying on your intuition. We could add that it should be based on some data as well. Slogan of Rolex describes the situation most of all: it doesn’t tell time, it tells history. There is some history, brand developing in the video. Think what you can show in terms of: then and now. To discuss this example more, you may notice that there is a certain message from this brand. This part is very important to call correct motivation from your customers. Only after understanding the strategy of your brand you can make any marketing activities. However, we recommend waiting for a while and study your target audience. Here we mean to catch who your audience actually is. To draw a portrait of your customer you should include such factors like demography, marital status, type of work, where they go shopping, where they get news, which skills are necessary for work etc. After coming to conclusion you should think where these people mess around. We mean using online and offline areas. Sometimes, different location implies different means of communication. Of course, there is nothing better than to check what your competitors do. And here it is important not to copy them, but to show that you are different and why it is beneficial for your customers. Reasons why some brands may fail No seeing for long-term perspectives; Lack of work on brad’s uniqueness and its message; Lack of understanding the perfect clients; Incoherence in creativity; Obsolete methods or calls to such markets.   All the things we discussed are so simple, but mystically so difficult. Anyway, the best thing you can do before working on your brand is thinking and analyzing and only after it some actions can be taken.

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Creating Your Dream Restaurant? Here are a Few Tips

If you have always wanted to open your own restaurant, then you know what it’s like to fantasize over dishes, atmosphere, desserts, and to or to not have a live band performance area. However, it takes a lot to create the perfect restaurant. Many entrepreneurs have tried to become restaurant owners only to find that it’s not as glamorous as originally plotted out in their dreams. To be a successful restaurant creator, you have to have a dream, as well as the knowledge to turn it into a success. It’s not just about restaurant design either. These are a few tips that experienced restaurant entrepreneurs have shared. Learn the Three Pillars of Restaurant Businesses If you are overwhelmed by the idea of opening a restaurant, there are three things to focus on as you step forward into this journey. Your restaurant concept Your chef Your location Without knowing these three things, you will have a much harder and slower time creating the dream restaurant. These are the core ingredients to any successful restaurant, and they have to be well-planned. In addition, what goals define your success? Is it that you become a popular neighborhood spot? Do you want to be well-known in a specific genre? Do you simply want to make a lot of money and have good times? Open a Restaurant within a Fantastic Niche Nobody wants to go to the same restaurant all the time. That’s why there are local restaurants that have something different about them to draw in people and get the good reviews week-after-week. As you look around your area of the world, what restaurants, cuisine, service, and conveniences do you find that you like when you dine out? How could these help your business? One thing that many restaurant owners don’t look at is the technology behind a restaurant’s success. For example, new point of sale systems with mobile ordering or tabletop checkouts can really change the flow and atmosphere of your restaurant. Do you want a restaurant that can quickly take orders and provide detailed sales reports? Then you want to go with a POS system developed in the past two years. There are too many smart features with new point of sale systems to ignore. What About a Franchise Opportunity? Is there a particular restaurant out there that already matches what you want to do? Perhaps you could be a franchise owner, which is an easy way to get into the business and enjoy ownership as most of the work is already done for you. In addition, if you pick the right franchise, you will already have brand recognition and customer loyalty on your side. However, joining a franchise isn’t cheap, and you’ll need to prove that you can be a successful restaurant owner by showing financial stability and wealth of personal assets. Set Up Your Business Plan Whether you decide to open your dream restaurant or you want to get into a franchise, you should write out a business plan that will give you a roadmap to success. Here are some things to think about as you develop your plan: What’s your restaurant concept? What kind of restaurant do you want to own? Who is the audience coming to your restaurant? How do you service them? Who are the competitors of your restaurant? What is the ideal location for your restaurant? What is the unique value proposition of your restaurant, or more simply, what makes your restaurant different to customers? What kind of value do they get out of your restaurant? How will customers find your restaurant? Finally, what kind of resources will you need to start and keep your restaurant going? What kind of sales will you need to cover overhead as well as make a profit? Once you write out your business plan, you can share it with potential partners, chefs, or investors if you are looking for help to begin your dream.

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Kite Packaging increases warehouse capacity at its Swindon Regional Distribution Centre

Employee-owned business, Kite Packaging, supply a wide range of engineered packaging solutions and systems across the UK. The company has announced that they have increased the warehouse capacity at their Swindon regional distribution centre with the installation of a 4,000sq.ft mezzanine floor. Servicing large customers in the South West of the country as well as South Wales, the sales growth at Kite’s Swindon RDC has required the expansion of their facility out to a total new warehouse capacity of 40,000sq.ft. This latest investment follows several years of continued growth for Kite’s Swindon RDC since moving to their current location in June 2015. A Kite spokesperson commented: “As well as helping to maintain 100% OTIF to our existing customer base, the expansion of our warehouse capacity gives us additional space for new business customers trading with us from 2019.” Mezzanine constructions can be used for storing a wide range of products or even provide another designated pick and pack area, giving businesses more room to grow rather than having to face costly relocation measures. If your company is looking for a service and solutions based offering in the South West or South Wales area please contact Kite’s team at Swindon who can arrange a visit to help you find savings on your total packaging costs. For more information, please visit thamesvalley@kitepackaging.co.uk.

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Why holidaymakers are choosing Malaga airport as their destination

Malaga airport sees around 19 million visitors each year, and is Spain’s fourth largest airport after Madrid, Barcelona and Palma de Majorca. So why are so many people choosing Malaga as the destination of choice for this year’s holiday? Well the simple answer is that Malaga airport is perfectly situated for going to the beautiful Costa del Sol and visiting the rest of Andalucia. This part of Spain enjoys over 300 days of amazing sunshine every single year, and a wealth of history and culture, delicious gastronomy and seafood and outstanding coastal views, it is no wonder it is so popular with travellers. Added to this, this busy international airport has hundreds of flights arriving and departing every day from across Europe and the world, including from lower cost budget airlines and so the options available for travellers are a lot more flexible and budgets affordable. Your journey made easier with great facilities With Malaga airport being such an important one, with three terminals and many facilities available, it makes visiting just that little bit easier. For arranging onward travel, especially if you want the freedom to explore the area then car hire in Malaga airport is a great option. There are many choices available of car size and rental package is additional extras that can all be booked online in advance which means that when you arrive you don’t have to worry about fighting the crowds for car hire. You can simply head to a transfer bus that will take you directly to the pick up site and be on your way quickly and easily. Many places are accessible 24 hours a day should you need assistance. Easy access to the Costa del Sol The location of the airport is perfect. It is a mere 8km from Malaga city center, a fantastic place to visit with a rich history showing roman and moorish influences, and great traditional cuisine. For art lovers this is also the birthplace of Pablo Picasso and there is plenty of opportunities to see his works and those of artists who were influenced by this great painter and sculptor. This is one of the best Malaga tourist attractions that you should see. It is also really easy to get to the popular holiday towns and resorts within a relatively short transfer time. For example Torremolinos and Benalmadena are all pretty close for family holidays. And at the other end of the scale for luxury and party holidays then Marbella and Puerto Banus are also very close by. Great for road trips across Andalucia If you really want to get a true taste of Spain, then flying into Malaga airport, using the city as a base and then getting out on the road to see everything the region has to offer is a brilliant idea, especially if you have thought ahead and booked a hire car. You can cruise up and down the amazing coastline visiting beaches, coves and villages usually out of reach for the average traveller. To give an example, the lovely fishing village of Nerja, with it’s white washed buildings and unspoilt streets is one not to be missed. It is also worth visiting the great cave network outside the village, where you can head underground and explore where the Neanderthals lived. Sometimes they hold classical concerts in those caves if you are lucky enough to visit at the right time. The acoustics are like no other. You can also head out to Grenada, a place of great beauty and fascinating heritage and architecture. It is only around an hour and a half away from Malaga, and has some of the most spectacular moorish buildings in the world, including the world famous Alhambra palace.

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Get your brand out there: Kite Packaging expands custom printed tape range

Leading UK packaging supplier, Kite Packaging, has relaunched its custom tape offering, focusing on improved user experience through new technology as a part of the order process. The employee-owned business has also significantly expanded the range of packaging tapes that customers have available to brand.   Businesses throughout the UK are looking more to customised packaging that carry their brand and now customers can benefit from Kite’s custom printed tape tool – a simple, cost-effective way of personalising packaging. A key benefit of purchasing custom printed tape is the positive effect it has on brand reputation, as well as providing a further layer of security to make sure goods travel from A to B in the same condition they left the warehouse in. Kite’s new custom printed tape functionality offers a more user friendly and dynamic order process with three easy steps to create your desired customised tape and a simple reorder option for repeat order customers. Users can choose from a range of tapes, including Acrylic (PP), Hot melt (PP) and Vinyl (PVC), or for a more environmentally-friendly branded solution, customers can select gummed paper or Kraft paper tape. There are also three backdrop colours and widths available to choose from, letting customers find the right printed tape for their business. Brand building is an integral part of day to day business and packaging is often seen as an extension of the product that it contains, making it a very important element to take advantage of. With its low-cost brand awareness benefits and enhanced usability, Kite’s new custom printed tape creates a great customer experience and maintains the company’s focus on the best range at the best price. To find out more about Kite Packaging’s custom printed tape or for any other bespoke packaging enquiries, please visit kitepackaging.co.uk.

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Kite Packaging introduces new hand pallet wrap bundle offer

Pallet wraps are made of a highly elastic plastic film made from linear low-density polyethene (LLDPE). The plastic wrap tension after application protects the contents stored in a pallet during transit. Stored items remain together in the pallet. Pallet wraps are designed to reduce damage and loss of products. Kite’s 5×5 pallet wrap system, one of the UK’s safest ways of reducing health and safety issues associated with hand wrapping pallets, is now available to buy in bundles on the Kite Packaging website. The employee-owned business has introduced new hand stretch bundles which will help save its customer’s time and money thanks to their operational efficiency boosting qualities. When used with industrial tools and supplies such as pallet floor scales and pallet hand wrapping systems, the new product can significantly enhance and streamline warehouse workflow. While industrial pallet scales ensure accurate weighing of pallets, pallet hand wraps ensure pallet content protection during transportation. This hand wrapping system is particularly useful for businesses looking to boost their green credentials and reduce their use of plastic as it reduces the amount of pallet wrap used by up to 60%. The 5×5 pallet wrap dispenser, which was previously only available on a rental basis, can also now be purchased as a permanent addition, meaning businesses no longer have to enter into a contract. Ergonomically designed to improve comfort and efficiency, these hand held pallet wrap systems allow operators to walk forward around pallets in order to dispense the film in a natural position with no bending or stretching required. This combined with its pre-stretch gears that release film at the optimum elastic point, ensures a reduced risk of any health and safety issues that can arise. The bundles are each made up of a 5×5 shrink wrap dispenser and nano technology pallet wrap, with a wide variety of pallet wrap specifications to choose from so businesses can find the right pallet wrap for their business. Product packaging ranges from bubble envelopes and cartons to pallet wrap systems. Whatever your business niche is, it’s crucial to choose a product packaging that is environmentally friendly. When using pallet wraps, it’s crucial to determine the items you’ll be storing. Square boxes and even loads should have an elastic wrap, with static material to cling to flat box edges. For uneven boxes, the loads need an elastic pallet wrap with more thickness and strength, and higher tear resistance. Irregular edges of uneven loads may tear or rip the pallet wrap during transport. For very uneven loads or boxes with different sizes, shapes, and weight, experienced staff should wrap the items to avoid damage using high-quality wraps with superior tear resistance. If you want to find out how else you can improve your environmental operations, please visit www.kitepackaging.co.uk.

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NBS Chorus flies as Ryder become first to use the new specification platform

International design practice Ryder Architecture’s Newcastle and Vancouver teams have become one of the first practices to produce a specification in the cloud using NBS Chorus, the new flagship platform from NBS. The specification platform has not only provided Ryder with a new level of collaboration across its global business, but the cloud-technology has enabled the team to develop their specifications in the office, on-site, and even mid-flight from the UK to Canada. The two-year project is a heritage restoration site in Vancouver, St. Andrew’s Wesley United Church, so the choice to use NBS Chorus with its UK and Canadian content libraries was another benefit to the whole team. Adam James, principal of Ryder’s Vancouver team, said: “NBS Chorus is a welcome addition to Ryder’s digital toolkit of collaborative design tools. The data driven framework of Chorus allows us to rapidly specify building components and materials in manner that integrates with our existing building information modelling tools, while working in geographically distributed teams.” Aimed at those professionals who need to produce high quality specifications efficiently, NBS Chorus is a pioneering collaborative specification platform, which supports global design and construction. The use of cloud technology, ensures that those using the new platform have the latest software and global content at all times – including the latest standards and regulations. This offers an invaluable improvement in collaboration and efficiencies across whole teams, allowing the different players in a construction project to work in a single place, on the same data. The platform also enables users to integrate the model and the specification, which saves time and reduces the risk of information becoming out of sync. NBS CEO, Richard Waterhouse, said: “It’s not overstating it to say that the launch of NBS Chorus heralds a revolution in our business. “As we’ve seen from the results of our recent NBS Construction Technology Report, 63% of over 500 respondents are already using cloud technologies, and we want to ensure our customers are part of this digital disruption that’s happening across the industry. “It was a perfect fit for Ryder to be one of the first to use and complete a specification in NBS Chorus as they were involved in informing and developing the platform to ensure it provided the solution they needed – and I think it’s done exactly that.” NBS Chorus has also been developed with Uniclass 2015 as its native classification structure, and as set by BS EN ISO19650 and the UK National Annex, should be used as the classification structure on all BIM projects. With access to 24 hour support, NBS is reinforcing its message that it is ready to support global construction projects. Since announcing expansion across two continents in 2017, acquiring Canada-based Digicon and setting up in Australia, NBS has updated the NBS National BIM Library and BIM Object standard tools to include Canadian and Australian content. NBS, who provide technical information, specification and BIM tools to construction industry professionals as well as services for building product manufacturers recently announced a £31.8m investment from LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group.   To find out more about NBS visit www.theNBS.com

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Kite Packaging introduces dynamic gummed paper tape dispenser

As its environmental drive continues to flourish, employee-owned business, Kite Packaging, has developed a new gummed paper tape dispenser to add to its online offering. The new machine is another innovative addition for the Kite team, one that enables its customer base to seal cartons with eco-friendly paper tape, therefore reducing the amount of plastic waste produced from other traditional tapes. Its manual design makes it ideal for light to medium volume packing operations and its compact sizing offers the ultimate table top sealing solution for small to medium distribution businesses across the country. This dispenser has been designed with time-saving in mind as its large water tank and fill chamber ensures water is always topped up. It’s also equipped with long and effective brushes which moisten and coat the tape quickly, thus eliminating the need for a water heater. Kite’s new machine can help companies achieve efficiency in the smaller, manual workspace whilst strengthening their environmentally-friendly characteristics to their brand. Packaging tape plays a pivotal part in safeguarding products throughout transit, gummed paper tape is an excellent option as it provides a tamper-evident, temperature tolerant solution that does not harm the environment. For more information about Kite’s gummed paper tape dispenser or about its products and services, please visit www.kitepackaging.co.uk

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