Catherine Diamond10.10.14
Lauterbach Group, Inc.
W222 N5710 Miller Way, Sussex, WI, USA 53089 USA
www.lauterbachgroup.com
Established in 1990, Lauterbach Group was originally acquired by Bill Lauterbach. Today, the company has annual sales of more than $25 million and is run by his three sons: Shane, president and CEO; Heath, vice president of research and development; and Brent, vice president of sales and marketing. Other members of the company’s leadership team include Elaine Schnier, vice president of administration; Pat Nienhaus, director of manufacturing; Don Sobush, director of engineering and estimation; and Denise Salamone, client services manager.
The company is involved with several industry and environmental organizations, including the TLMI (Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute)LIFE (Label Initiative for the Environment) program, Green Tier, Great Lakes Graphics Association, and the Flexographic Technical Association (FTA). In 2008, Lauterbach Group was the recipient of TLMI’s Environmental Leadership Award for Process Improvement. Additionally, Lauterbach Group has partnered with multiple local associations, including the Wisconsin Specialty Cheese Institute, American Cheese Society, International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association, Wisconsin Bakers Association, Wisconsin Grocers Association, and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association.
The Lauterbach Goup currently operates several UV flexographic press platforms that are 20" and 13" as well as 13" UV inkjet platform and converting cells.
According to President Shane Lauterbach, Lauterbach Group is “a product marking and visual asset management company fueled by an unrelenting conscience to protect and evolve a client’s brand until it is truly prepared to live and thrive at every vulnerable touch point.” As such, the company’s business and resources are structured into five areas: Information Services, Material Solutions, Supply Chain Efficiencies, Visual Asset Optimization, and Conscience Lab.
Lauterbach Group’s Information Services division is designed to deliver information to customers regarding things like invoices, supply chain distribution and product specifications. The company’s Materials Solutions department is a central hub of information to help Lauterbach clients match product needs with materials, including facestocks, adhesives, liners and regulatory concerns.
Supply Chain Efficiencies offer customers help with regard to environmental management, certifications, sanitation, production efficiency, and quality and safety practices. The Visual Asset Optimization department centers around creating a central art management area where all assets – including design, warehousing, color management and the like – are housed. The company’s color management library warehouses all color control and results by both color and project. Finally, the Conscience Lab at Lauterbach Group aims to come up with new services, products and technology for clients.
“The leadership team works within a ‘celled’ concept to understand where our current gravity is and where our aspirations need to focus,” Shane Lauterbach says. “We then break these five areas throughout the Group to gain insight.”
To maintain its focus, the leadership team conducts quarterly Group Meetings that center on these areas, and weekly Leadership Meetings to report action and activity within these areas of focus.
Earlier this year, Lauterbach Group developed its OmniMark Management System in an effort to emphasize its role as a “product marking company.” To this end, the company encourages brand owners to consider a full product marking system as opposed to a labeling system, because it believes that approaches to traditional labeling need to be upgraded.
“For us, a label is not just a label anymore,” Shane explains. “It is the greatest asset that stands between your product or service and the consumer. The label should easily communicate your brand’s purpose to the world. Here at the Lauterbach Group, we make decisions every day for brands so they can evolve and thrive in an extremely competitive consumer market. We don’t just make labels.
We make product marks that live.”
Lauterbach Group believes that labeling a product isn’t enough; product marking, the company says, uses processes that identify a brand’s purpose.
This holistic approach to labeling takes into account art and color management, logistics, sanitation, data, digital processes and other technology and materials.
The OmniMark Management System is a suite of services that “manage a brand’s journey through the product marking process.” According to the company, it provides insights on supply chain efficiencies, quality control and improvement, and visual asset management.
“Our OmniMark Management System is revolutionary,” Shane says. “It provides information so we can protect brands from every vulnerable touch point, including the ones brands aren’t even aware of. It is our job to educate them and provide them with the best protection available.”
Shane emphasizes that the traditional approach to labeling is hyper-focused on equipment, and not nearly enough time is spent considering the label’s purpose, function, and its implications for brand owners. The power of digital, he says, is not the digital press in and of itself, but what can be done with the information. “One of our aspirations is to develop a print-agnostic ecosystem within our pressroom,” he says. “In other words, we have access to multiple, cutting edge technologies, but what matters is the mark itself. We’ll get the job done regardless of the platform.
“We believe that the product-marking world is a rapidly evolving environment; one where a brand can get lost in doing the same things over and over, losing site of the holistic practices which can help identify and convey the brand passion. This passion is not the product, but the passion of the people who make the products and deliver the services to support the brand. We believe in product marking, not product labeling,” he says.
Shane acknowledges that product ideas and innovations are necessary – and welcome - but the vulnerabilities seen throughout the life cycle of a label are of far greater concern.
“We try to look at where current gravity positions us and what aspirations we want to pursue to improve,” Shane says. “At the end of the day, we do not view ourselves as printers. Yes, we print up to 12 colors; yes, we can produce many decorations and enhanced features in adhesives, laminates, coatings and specialized materials, but that is not what makes up our business. Our people do, and their ability to work within an ecosystem that applies sound operational practices – Lean Manufacturing, practice control and continuous improvement – while having a foundation built on entrepreneurialism.”