Action Packaging Leverages Digital, Flexo Printing

In a slight twist on one of Newton's famed laws of motion, it could be said that every business action has an equivalent customer reaction. Optimally, of course, the customer's reaction is positive. But for today's converters to assure this outcome, what actions should be on their end of the equation?

At Ellington, Conn.-headquartered, pressure-sensitive label converter Action Packaging Systems, founder and President Doug Rice believes prompt response is a winning formula for consistently pleasing customers—from the standpoints of both product turnaround and service capabilities. To illustrate Action Packaging's typical responsiveness to turnaround needs, Rice relates that he once took a job off an en-route delivery truck and drove it to a customer himself to get it there faster. On the capabilities side, Action Packaging's 34-year history in the converting marketplace is punctuated with strategic service additions and adjustments made in accordance with changing end-user demands. One of Action's most recent responses to evolving customer needs was its installation of a Xeikon 3500 digital press in August 2011—an investment that Rice says provides packaging brand owners "with additional choices of how to best print their jobs."

Rapid ramp-ups

Action Packaging, a $15 million company, currently provides flexographic and digital printing services, as well as label application equipment (CTM Labeling and its own Gold Seal line), for food, beverage, household goods, and industrial products packaging. Even at Action's inception in 1979, it was evident that a brisk, decisive pace would characterize the company's activities. Rice relates that he "went full speed" into developing Action after, as a new college graduate, there was no opening for him to join the sales team at his father's company, Rice Packaging. After a "quick" size-up of Action's customer needs and issues, Rice first focused on offering label application equipment and establishing the company's signature "You Pick the Day" five-day scheduling window for labels. He describes his company's five-day turnaround policy "as a taxi cab," rather than "a bus route," explaining, "We will have a cab ready at all times. No need to wait for the bus." His brother Gordon Rice joined Action in 1981, to head up a new stock folding carton division acquired from Rice Packaging.

Doug Rice moved swiftly to add flexographic printing capability to Action's service repertoire in 1984, after existing printing service partners could not achieve his turnaround goals. Flexo operations began with a 3-color Mark Andy 830 press; today, customers enjoy 10˝ to 13˝, 8-color flexo capability provided through five Mark Andy presses (four 2200 presses and one P-5 Performance press) and six Propheteer presses, spread across the company's Connecticut facility and a second plant in High Point, N.C., that opened in 1994.

Rice's quick decision-making (facilitated by dedicated time to careful research) also factored into Action Packaging's installation of digital printing technology. "I had been studying digital for years," he relates, "and the week I was to place an order for a competitive digital press it was suggested to me to study Xeikon's new [3500] press." When Rice and Action's operations manager flew to Xeikon's Chicago office for a closer look at Xeikon's technology, Rice recalls, "In front of me was the solution I had been looking for."

The Xeikon 3500 features that stood out to Rice included the press's ability to print 1,200 dpi at widths up to 20˝ on coated and uncoated substrates, including paperboard—a capability that would lend applicability for both Action's labels and future paperboard packaging applications. Rice was further impressed by the quality of the press's opaque white printing on clear substrates. The press's continuous web enables precise print-to-cut registration, Rice reports, and a built-in sheeter permits printing and sheeting in-line. He also notes the press's compatibility with indirect food contact inks, and its environmentally friendly operation (no hazardous waste or VOCs, and self-contained environmental humidity needs).

Action currently runs the Xeikon at 13˝, typically hitting average runs of 7,000 to 8,000 feet, with an expectation to take volumes higher when jobs go wider. Now that digital printing operations are live at Action, Rice emphasizes what he maintains is the press's best feature: "It does not change color from run to run. The label will always look the same."

Model operations

A key element of Action's business plan has been the ability to run most any given job on any one of its presses. "Until [2012] all of our eleven presses were ten inches wide, allowing interchangeability of tooling and eliminating the problem of 'that press is tied up'," Rice explains. Thanks to some additional research and adjustments, he expects this operational model to extend to the Xeikon press. "Our biggest learning curve was matching the output to flexo," Rice relates. "We wanted the transition to be seamless for customers." After tweaking the Xeikon's 4-color formula to produce spot colors from the flexo process, "we can't tell which press we've made it on," he comments. As a result, when higher volumes dictate, a digital job can "seamlessly" transition back to flexo, he adds.

Assessing the transition trend from the other direction, Rice says Action has moved "a good number of jobs over to digital from flexo." For one beverage company customer, digital printing services started off "small," but now Action digitally prints 35,000 feet on a 20˝ web of clear BOPP with a PET liner for this firm. Initially, the job ran two-up, Rice observes, but it now runs four-up and is slit coming out of the Xeikon onto the dual waste take-up, before heading over to Action's Digicon diecutting system from AB Graphic International (also installed in 2011). Another Action customer, after seeing the benefits of digital for its applications, moved 80 percent of its volume to digital.

Rice is determined to stay true to Action's five-day turnaround formula with the Xeikon technology, despite the fact that a five-day production time-frame can leave an operation open to the risk of temporarily idle presses. "We see Action carrying the same service philosophy into digital, as it has served our customers well," he states. The prospect of occasional press downtime is not a concern due to the "many different profit centers" at the company, he contends.

Gauging future action

For some, the advent of digital printing technology has raised fears of a fundamental change in the identity of the converter. As Rice puts it, "You don't want to become a copy center," where business wins are determined by "who can push the button the fastest." However, Rice views converters' responsive-action equation as a bit more complex. He works closely with Action customers to determine the most cost-effective print process for their jobs, and sees those with multiple label or package versions (and thus numerous flexo plates) as digital's most likely proponents for now. Further, he expects growth across both digital and flexo printing processes—15 percent and 10 percent respectively. In this vein, Action further solidified its commitment to flexo with the addition of the Mark Andy 13˝ P-5 Performance press in the past year. "We will continue to invest in new technology in both digital and flexo," Rice says.

For Action, which has reportedly grown at a rate of $1 million a year for the past five years, Rice's goal is to "grow comfortably to ensure our philosophy and service to our customers does not waiver." He acknowledges "there is a trend" toward packaging end users favoring digital over flexo. "Digital is estimated to grow 18 percent per year for labels and we are just getting started in the short-run folding carton opportunities," says Rice. For this converter, it's clear that continued action within the digital printing arena is likely to generate positive customer reactions. pP