| Dec 1, 2009
By:Mark Arzoumanian
White top linerboard (WTL) is sporting some black and blue bruises. This premium containerboard grade has taken some hits in this tough economy. For years, corrugated box makers have used WTL to aid their customers. It helped make their products (including fruits, vegetables and toys) shine on supermarket and store shelves. But in the past five years a shakeup in this grade?s producers and the unrelenting recession have put into question its value. Is it still worth paying more for WTL? What has changed and why?
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Nov 1, 2009
By: Mark Arzoumanian
Knowing how to keep litho-laminated packaging buyers happy results in your name never being associated with problems.
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Oct 1, 2009
By:Mark Arzoumanian
Green Bay Packaging's new folding carton plant allows it to more efficiently meet current demand and, most importantly, grow without any restraints.
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Oct 1, 2009
By:Mark Arzoumanian
Everyone likes to check out rankings, right? In late September, I was browsing the magazine racks at my local Borders bookstore when Newsweek's Sept. 28 cover on the greenest big companies in America caught my eye.
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Huston patterson makes continuous customer and employee education a top priority.
Sep 1, 2009
By:Mark Arzoumanian
The HPX Academy, which is open to customers and all employees, has 36 courses with three levels of certification.
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A third generation is now involved in running Indiana Carton. It's a new animal that has evolved from old school commodity thinking.
Aug 1, 2009
By:Mark Arzoumanian
It's a moment that members of the family-run Indiana Carton (IC), Bremen, Ind., will never forget. Nine years ago, the independent folding carton converter was confronted with a harsh reality: It hadn't kept up with technological developments. Every department was operating with equipment that was at least 20 years old. No capital investment had been made since the early 1980s.
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Here's how a long-term business relationship helped ensure a box plant's future.
May 1, 2009
By:Mark Arzoumanian
It's not easy to admit that technology is passing you by. But a couple of years ago, Lewis Eagle, president, Empire Container Corp. (ECC), an independent sheet plant headquartered in Carson, Calif., not only came to that conclusion but realized that if he and his brother, Norm, vice president, didn't take action to keep the operation viable, it would die a slow death.
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Mar 1, 2009
By:Mark Arzoumanian
A very tough economy isn't stopping corrugated box plants from making and selling boxes. But now more than ever their customers can demand perfection in quality and delivery. If quality complaints start coming in, these plants have to look at their machinery and ask some very tough questions. The most important one, of course, is: Do we replace this aging machine that's giving us quality problems or do we upgrade it?
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