Steve Katz, Editor09.09.14
Action Packaging Systems
374 Somers Road, Ellington, CT 06029 USA
www.actionpkg.com
An idle press is cause for panic for many label company owners. Typically, observing the most expensive equipment asset standing still translates to meaning there’s not enough business. This is not the case at Action Packaging Systems, Inc., and the Ellington, CT-based manufacturer is not your typical label company.
Doug Rice, the company’s founder and president, concedes that even after 35 years, an idle press can still be difficult to see. However, he knows that this is an important aspect to his business model, and what sets his company apart from the competition.
Rice started in the label business working as a broker, selling labels throughout New England. Out of a rented office, he started in the industry in 1979 as a one-man-band. Rice enjoyed the work, and quickly developed a strategy to grow his business. “I’d tell my customers I could deliver their labels whenever they needed them,” he recalls. “I’d say to them, ‘You pick the day’.”
With a bold business model based on just-in-time delivery of flexo-printed labels, Action Packaging grew. In 1984, when his label supplier could no longer keep up with the pace – causing Rice to break delivery promises – he built his 20,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Ellington, rented out half the space, and purchased his first press, a Mark Andy 830. “And the ‘you pick the day’ delivery philosophy never changed,” he says.
As its name implies, there is more to Action Packaging Systems than labels. In 1981, the company acquired Fastpak, a division of Rice’s father’s company, Rice Packaging. Fastpak is a line of stock folding carton products ideal for fasteners and small industrial parts. That same year, Doug’s brother Gordon joined Action Packaging. Today, Gordon is Action Packaging’s vice president. He manages the Fastpak division, while also selling labels and application machinery.
In addition to labels and folding cartons, there’s a label applicator side to Action Packaging. In 1998, Doug’s brother Clifford created the Gold Seal Label applicator. Designed to be simple and reliable, Gold Seal requires no adjustments, and no belts, chains or clutches can wear out.
Action Packaging offers two types of applicators, the Gold Seal line, which the company designs and manufactures, and the print-and-apply CTM line of products. Rice says, “In my eyes, application equipment and labels are a perfect marriage. I have always been able to go to a customer with a complete solution. In addition to supplying labels, I ask them how I can help them with label application. Many of our label customers are also getting their applicators from us.”
Five and Out
Thirty-five years later, Action Packaging has evolved well beyond its humble beginnings, but the same just-in-time approach to labels remains. “You pick the day” has evolved into “Five and Out” – the ship date is five days after receipt of the order. While Five and Out may seem unrealistic to some, Action Packaging has the business model, the equipment, and – as Rice points out, most importantly – the people to make it work.
In the early days, all of the company’s presses were seven inches wide, and then they all became ten inches. Today, the company is transitioning to 13-inch web widths. The reason being, Rice explains, is so “all of my presses can run all of our jobs – I can never say a press is busy,” he says.
There’s a second facility in High Point, NC. The plant opened in 1994 to lead the way in the company’s foray into four-color process printing. Also 20,000 square feet, today it’s a mirror image of the Connecticut plant, and operates on an identical philosophy.
“When I hire a manager and tell them we run jobs in one to five days, they can’t believe it,” Rice says. “They have a tough time digesting that, but I show them how it can be done through standardization, and, more importantly, Five and Out being a top-down philosophy and printing process.”
Around ten years ago, Action Packaging’s Connecticut operation felt the need to get deeply involved in four-color process. The company turned to Rick Ferreira, who had previously sold Rice Propheteer presses, and was an instrumental force in teaching Rice about the label business and press capabilities. Ferreira came on board as quality manager and was quickly upgraded to operations manager for both the Connecticut and North Carolina plants.
Reflecting on his start with the company, Ferreira says, “We really had to scramble with training and hiring pressmen, and to get the jobs out that we promised to be out in five days. It was very challenging.”
As the company grows incrementally each year, Five and Out remains a challenge, particularly in supporting and maintaining the business model of a larger company. “I accept the challenge, and it does work,” Ferreira says, adding, “But I’m always trying to be cautious of not having to pull too much, because I really care about our people. But it truly does make us different.”
Action Packaging runs two shifts – 12 hours at night and ten during the day. “That’s 22 hours of press time,” Ferreira says. “The idea is, don’t take anything out of the press until the job is done.”
For Doug Rice and his staff at Action Packaging Systems, Five and Out is not only what sets them apart, it also fuels the energy in the pressroom and creates opportunities for the sales department. Rice sums it up: “Everybody wants price, quality and service. Pricing is set by the market place, quality is expected today, and we are fortunate to have been perfecting the delivery aspect for so long – that’s our game – running sprints.”
Sprinting
Action Packaging is all about quick delivery, and the company has the equipment in place to meet its stringent goals. “We’ve had to make tremendous investments,” Ferreira says, alluding to not only the company’s 10 flexo presses – there are six in Connecticut and four in North Carolina – but also an investment in digital printing. In 2011, after careful consideration, the company installed a Xeikon 3500 digital label press. On the flexo side, Action Packaging uses Propheteer, Mark Andy 2200s and now, most recently, two Mark Andy P5 Performance Series presses, with a third P5 on order. To Rice, the P5 is the press “I’ve been waiting for all my life. It’s exceeded our expectations,” he says.
Action Packaging’s two servo-driven P5’s are 13 inches wide, and boast some of the fastest makeready times in the industry. And when speed is the name of your game, it’s a perfect match. “It’s amazing,” Rice says of the P5. “Because of my short lead times, most weeks we run low on work. But then there will be a week when I’m running mandatory overtime, and then the following week we could be slow again – all because of our short lead times. We have just a five-day window – that’s the game I’ve been playing for 35 years and it’s the only game I know.”
The Xeikon is another ideal fit in meeting the company’s needs. “Because we’re running Five and Out, that press runs every day, all day. I can’t have it go down, and the Xeikon is an outstanding press in terms of uptime,” Rice says.
While the digital press maximizes its uptime, at Action Packaging there is a flexo press open at all times, just in case someone calls and says they need labels. Indeed, a perpetually open press is an added expense, but the company is set up to absorb the costs.
Rice explains: “The reason we can do it is because we have five legs to our barstool. I don’t have to have every cylinder firing. There’s digital, Connecticut flexo, North Carolina flexo, Fastpak and the application machine division. If one or two are slow, my monthly statement doesn’t suffer, because I have the other divisions feeding the company.”
People of Action
When Action Packaging brought Ferreira on board, the company went in a new direction in the Connecticut plant, evolving to print high-quality four-color process labels. The majority of its business comes from regional food customers, and its high customer retention rate should come as no surprise.
Beyond the presses and the flurry of activity involved in getting orders out in a handful of days, Action Packaging could not succeed without the efforts and commitments of its people – in both production and on the sales side of the business.
Rice makes a fitting analogy. “The label industry runs like a bus company, where you have specific stops at specific times of day, where you can count on the bus being there. We’re a taxi company – I need a car now, I need a ride now. So we’re sprinting. But the backbone of our taxi company is our people, who get it done each and every day. It’s unbelievable.”
Action Packaging’s pressroom employees are skilled and versatile. “The reason is,” Ferreira says, “They are well-trained. Training is done in-house, and it’s simple – they want to learn, we allow them to learn, and we give them the opportunity. Everyone here is a backup shipper, or a backup utility man. And virtually everyone in the company has multiple talents to go to whole other departments.”
“Our people step up like you wouldn’t believe,” adds Rice. “The sense of urgency here from people running equipment is unmatched.”
Action Packaging’s 55 employees (in CT and NC combined) are rewarded for their passion and effort. Everyone gets a raise, every year. “And it’s more than a cost-of-living raise,” Ferreira says. “As good as the sales guys are, our production people are always rewarded for their hard work. It’s a win-win.”
Speaking of sales, this department also goes the extra mile – literally. Mike Gerrity is one of Action Packaging’s key salesmen, and Rice is quick to point to stories where “Mike takes service to an unheard of level.” Like when he traveled to Wisconsin from Connecticut to pick up special labelstock for a job, then raced back to Connecticut for the job to be run at the eleventh hour. All to keep the delivery promise he made to his customer.
As Gerrity humbly points to the pressroom, he says, “The people here, they create the opportunities for sales, and my extension is the hustle and the relationships with our customers. It’s easy to say ‘I can’t get your order today,’ but we put the customer ahead of ourselves, and everyone here does the same thing.”
The sales team goes above and beyond, even so far as to intercept a delivery by stopping a tractor-trailer on the highway and driving the labels the rest of the way to save a couple of hours. “These things make the difference,” Rice says. “Why would you change suppliers if you can have that?"