A 50 m/min upgrade, roughly 278 m/min across a full day, and one question for plant directors: buy more capacity — or extract more from the corrugator already installed?
400,000 linear meters in 24 hours. A speed increase from 250 to 300 m/min. A 77,000 m² plant with two production lines. And a machinery supplier with reported 2024 turnover of about €827 million.
Those numbers make the Fabyab case in Erbil worth more than a quick production-record headline.
On August 21, 2026, BHS Corrugated announced that Fabyab Co. Packaging Solutions had produced more than 400,000 linear meters of corrugated board in 24 hours on July 6. BHS linked the result to a February 2026 upgrade of the VALUE S Line from 250 to 300 m/min, continuous optimization, its Lifecycle Partnership and the Fabyab operating team.
For corrugated producers, the more useful question is not whether a line can reach 300 m/min. It is how much saleable board it can produce across a full day with real orders, real changeovers, real stops and real quality constraints.
The Number That Matters: About 278 m/min Across a Full Day
At 300 m/min, a corrugator running continuously for 24 hours would cover a theoretical 432,000 linear meters.
Fabyab’s reported result of more than 400,000 meters therefore implies a gross elapsed-time rate of at least about 277.8 m/min — roughly 92.6% of the upgraded maximum across the full 24-hour period.
400,000 m ÷ 1,440 min = 277.8 m/min
92.6% of 300 m/min
432,000 m = theoretical 24-hour distance at 300 m/min
That is a strong gross rate. But it is not OEE.
The published figure does not tell us how much board was saleable, how many orders and grade changes were run, how much trim or quality waste was generated, how long the line was available, or how much production time was lost during changeovers.
BHS lists the VALUE S platform at up to 34,000 m²/hour and offers working widths of 2,500 mm or 2,800 mm. Those are specifications for the VALUE S platform — not a confirmed specification for the Erbil installation. Fabyab’s exact working width and product mix for the 400,000-meter day have not been publicly disclosed.
Without those figures, converting the result into reliable square meters or tonnes would add more assumption than analysis.
The Record Was Built Over Years, Not One Day
The strongest part of the Fabyab story is the progression.
September 2022 — BHS reported the start-up of the first BHS corrugator in Iraq at Fabyab in Erbil. Its start-up post was published on October 17, 2022, with the Dubai team supporting installation and remote commissioning.
January 6, 2024 — Hassen Mili of Fabyab reported 228,208 linear meters and 550,112 m² at an average 250 m/min, without stops.
October 17, 2024 — Mili reported another run of 274,397 meters at an average 240 m/min, again without a stop.
February 2026 — BHS increased the line’s stated maximum speed from 250 to 300 m/min.
July 6, 2026 — Fabyab exceeded 400,000 linear meters in 24 hours. BHS published the result on August 21.
The 2024 runs cannot be compared directly with the July 2026 24-hour result because the public posts do not provide the same time window, order mix, working width or waste data. But they show something important: Fabyab was already operating close to the original 250 m/min ceiling before the upgrade.
This was not a one-day jump from ordinary performance to a spectacular number. It was a multi-year progression from start-up to optimization, repeated high-speed runs and then a higher technical ceiling.
What BHS Has Proved — and What It Has Not
The verified change is straightforward: BHS says the Fabyab VALUE S Line was upgraded from 250 to 300 m/min in February 2026, and the plant later crossed 400,000 linear meters in 24 hours.
What remains undisclosed is just as important.
BHS did not publish the exact hardware or software package used in the upgrade. It also did not publish the number of orders and grade changes during the 24-hour run, waste percentage, availability, OEE, average working width or saleable output.
That matters because a higher nominal speed is only one part of productivity. Paper behaviour, heat, adhesive performance, board flatness, operator capability and production scheduling can all decide whether a plant turns technical speed into stable, saleable production.
A speed upgrade creates capacity. The plant still has to convert that capacity into useful output.
300 m/min Is Fast — but Speed Alone Does Not Rank a Corrugator
The Erbil result is strong, but 300 m/min is not the technical ceiling for modern corrugators. In January 2026, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries EMEA reported a 2.5 m singlewall NGC corrugator at Penha Group in Brazil with a rated speed of 400 m/min and a gapless order-change system.
That does not make one line better than another. It shows why nominal speed is a weak standalone KPI.
A 300 m/min line with high availability, low waste, fast changeovers and stable board quality can create more saleable output than a faster line that spends more time stopped or producing waste.
This is also where BHS’s scale becomes relevant. An industrial case study reports about €827 million in BHS Corrugated turnover in 2024 and more than 3,500 employees. BHS says it has service locations in more than 20 countries and reinvests nearly 5% of revenue in R&D. For Fabyab, however, the important part is not corporate size. It is whether lifecycle service, diagnostics, training and upgrades can produce measurable gains from equipment already installed.
Five KPIs That Matter More Than a Record
For a plant director, a production milestone becomes useful only when it can be connected to business KPIs.
- Gross average speed — measured across the full elapsed production period, not only at peak machine speed.
- Availability — including unplanned-stop minutes and the reasons behind them.
- Changeovers — number of order and grade changes and the time lost during each transition.
- Waste and saleable output — trim, quality rejects and saleable m², not only linear meters produced.
- OEE — or another consistent plant-level measure combining availability, performance and quality.
These five figures would tell the industry far more about the economic value of the 400,000-meter day than the headline number alone.
Upgrade the Existing Line — or Buy More Capacity?
The Fabyab case leads to a practical management question.
Before deciding that the next productivity increase requires another corrugator, a plant can benchmark several weeks of production and separate lost output into three areas: technical limitations, process settings and operational losses.
If the existing machine is mechanically capable of more but loses hours through stops, slow changeovers, unstable board quality or weak settings, an upgrade and process program may create more value than additional installed capacity.
If the line is already consistently close to its technical and economic ceiling, the case for a new corrugator becomes much stronger.
That is where the 400,000-meter result becomes interesting beyond BHS and Fabyab.
400,000 Meters Makes the Headline. Repeatability Makes the Business Case.
The eye-catching figure is 400,000 meters. The more revealing figure is about 278 m/min across a full 24 hours after a 50 m/min speed upgrade.
But the business value is still hidden in the KPIs that were not published with the result.
If Fabyab can repeat this level with low waste, high availability, fast changeovers, stable board quality and strong saleable output, then the story becomes more than a production milestone. It becomes evidence that an upgrade can materially change the economics of an installed corrugator — and potentially delay or reshape a much larger capital investment.
Sources
BHS Corrugated — Fabyab production milestone, August 21, 2026; Erbil start-up post, October 17, 2022; VALUE S Line specifications.
Fabyab / Hassen Mili — production posts dated January 6, 2024 and October 17, 2024; Fabyab company information.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries EMEA — Penha Group NGC corrugator update, January 2026.
HELUKABEL — BHS Corrugated industrial case study with 2024 turnover and global-scale data.
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