Investments Fuel Faster Response Time Great Northern recently invested in two exciting new pieces of equipment and expanded its on-site warehouse space capacity at the Packaging Group's Appleton plant. This $5 million investment will increase productivity, resulting in improved response and turnaround time for customers in a variety of areas. “These investments give us the ability to more quickly respond to our customers' delivery needs,” said Jeff Michels, General Manager. “Our ultimate goal is to accelerate our cycle times for faster turnaround in every area.” The defining feature of the new Emba is print stations that are fixed, which allows for a quick changeover. One order can be set up while another order is running because the print cylinders lift up out of the board line. Most other flexo folder gluers must be opened in between orders to change tooling. The Emba can complete an order change more quickly. This substantially improves turnaround time. “The flexibility of the Emba allows us to serve customers who need quick turnaround with multiple SKUs more effectively,” said Michels. “It guarantees the responsiveness and quality they need.” The design of the Emba 245 is a good fit for particular types of boxmaking such as boxes for cheese and paper. Its fixed-station design is similar to that of the offset industry, providing accurate scoring, slotting and print registration with vacuum transfer of the sheet. Its advanced technology also offers three-color printing capability, along with vent hole and cutout die-cutting in-line. The new Emba 245 complements the Packaging Group's existing Emba 170 mini Flexo Folder Gluer, which is also designed to run smaller sizes. “By adding another Emba flexo folder gluer to our equipment lineup, we are able to respond to virtually all sizes and order quantities with speed and reliability,” said Michels. The second major addition to the Packaging Group's Appleton facility is the purchase of a Bobst Autoplaten® SPO 160-Vision Flatbed Die Cutter. “The new Bobst flatbed die cutter ensures our ability to respond to the rising demands of our customers for superior die cutting quality within even tighter timeframes,” said Michels. The machine guarantees that Great Northern can respond to customer needs with the maximum performance characteristics customers demand. In addition to faster response times, customers can also be assured of precise registration results that produce the highest-quality product in the shortest amount of time. Along with these upgrades, the Appleton facility now also has 75,000 square feet of on-site warehousing space available. This allows for increased logistics efficiencies and contributes to the ultimate goal of faster response times. The Packaging Group also plans to purchase two additional systems in the second half of 2006 that will lead to further process improvements. These include investments in a new transfer car system to improve product mobility and a new scrap system to more efficiently handle waste. “Great Northern remains dedicated to continuing our investment efforts in our business to ensure we maintain our competitive edge,” Michels added. “We will continue to investigate additional investments as opportunities arise to increase productivity, take advantage of new technologies and enhance the quality of our end product.” |
New investments, including an Emba
The Emba features a fixed-station
The technology of the Bobst Flatbed
The Bobst Die Cutter features a unique process to increase production speeds.
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