Teknologidrevet international vækst

Den fleksible emballageindustri er vokset enormt i løbet af de sidste 10-15 år, fordi forbrugernes krav har ændret sig. Hvor du måske kun havde få varianter af chips at vælge imellem i supermarkedet, har vi i dag et bredt udvalg af forskellige smagsvarianter og flere nichemarkeder, så producenterne er nødt til at tilpasse sig efterspørgslen og producere specialemballage i mindre mængder og med kortere leveringstid.

Parag Patel, Managing Director og CIO hos ePac Flexible Packaging, forklarer, at »just in time«-konceptet med behov for tryk ved bestilling og hurtigere gennemløbstid krævede ultimativ fleksibilitet hos ePac for at kunne drive en succesfuld virksomhed, der kunne reagere på markedets krav:

»Vi havde brug for en fleksibel platform for at kunne servicere vores vækst og skalere hurtigt. Men samtidig skulle ERP-systemet understøtte en ret kompleks produktionsproces, fordi alt hos os er skræddersyet. Tænk bare på de processer, der er nødvendige for at producere en specialtilpasset pakke fra tryk til laminering og indpakning i forskellige størrelser med bogstaveligt talt hundredvis af strukturer, der skal oprettes i farten med forskellige egenskaber som lynlåse eller ophængningshuller osv. Vi havde brug for noget, der er meget fleksibelt, så selvom NAV (Business Central) er et godt åbent produkt, havde vi brug for den ekstra fleksibilitet til at justere og tilpasse os vores skiftende behov og typer af input som strukturer osv. Vi har brug for at forstå de nøjagtige omkostninger ved at producere en vare baseret på kundernes specifikationer på en hurtig måde. En af de vigtigste ting for os er at give kunderne et hurtigt svar på, hvor meget noget vil koste dem.”

Parag elaborates on the importance of faster turnaround time: “The ‘instant’ nature of things had caused customers and consumers to become very demanding in terms of turnaround time. We have to be able to turn around a complex solution very quickly and then we have to be able to produce it very quickly. We have a great partner in PrintVis and that makes our solution feasible. In our industry, flexible packaging alone in the US is about a 40-billion-dollar industry and is currently growing at about 5.5% CAGR.  Some of the things we are doing here at ePac have been done in other commercial applications, including labels, but with the complexity and number of variables inherent in flex pack, we really needed the ability to adapt technology to our business model, not the other way around, and PrintVis helped us do that.”

Why did you choose PrintVis Cloud?

“One of the aspects of the solution we were looking for is that we reduced the burden on infrastructure. We have 23 plants in operation at this point in time, all with a relatively small footprint. There are no traditional servers or data centers. We build everything in the cloud. That gives us advantages in terms of redundancy, overhead, and capital investment. It is critical to us to expand globally with this modern environment in the cloud. So, we needed a stable cloud platform that could be scaled out quickly from one plant to over 20 plants in a matter of 3 years. The companies that embrace it and invest in a modern solution are the ones that succeed in the future.”

ePac was originally founded to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses in the flexible packaging industry. Today they are partnering with brands of all sizes to help consumer brands achieve better brand presence. ePac opened their first manufacturing facility in Madison, Wisconsin in 2016 and today they have over 20 locations around the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, West Africa, and the Asia Pacific region.

For more information about ePac please visit epacflexibles.com