New MD at Encase and fresh investment at Banbury
Mr Martin Costa has taken over from Mr John Lowe as Managing Director of Encase Ltd. Martin was previously Sales and Commercial Director of Encase, and General Manager of our Banbury facility. We are delighted that Martin accepted this exciting new assignment and will provide him and the whole team with our complete support alongside that of our parent company Canadian Overseas Packaging Industries Limited.
Mr John Lowe, although relinquishing his position as MD of Encase, has agreed to remain on the Encase Board as a non-executive director. John joined Encase in 2007 and has been instrumental in guiding Encase through the challenges of the last year. However, it had always been John’s wish to retire from an active role with Encase at the age of 60. The Board wishes to thank John for his invaluable contribution and looks forward to continued collaboration in the years ahead.
In spite of difficult trading conditions Encase is faring well, and fresh investment into the Banbury facility further underscores our commitment to strengthening our presence within the corrugated packaging industry.
On behalf of the Board
Niels de Coninck-Smith Chairman
9 November 2009
General Manager Appointments
Steve Miller has taken over responsibility for the Banbury site from Martin Costa who has become Group Managing Director. Steve was invited to bring his industry operations experience to Encase just over a year ago and has managed production at Banbury highly effectively during challenging times. With new equipment being installed and a great commerical and technical team to lead he has no doubt he is in the right place at the right time.
John Blaney has taken over responsibility for managing Encase East Kilbride. Years of sales management of our profitable Scottish plant where nothing is static, since ever-changing customers' needs are paramount ; have provided John with the right commercial and technical experience. With new machinery installed and more planned, John Blaney has the future of Encase East Kilbride iin his hands.
Group Technical Director Phil Lockwood oversees the complex technical needs and the overall prodcution planning of the three Encase sites. In addition to his group responsibilities Phil is General Manager of the Leeds operation with its recently enhanced ability to produce large format packaging. Our Leeds plant is home to the Test Drive Centre, the Encase packaging design facility which works with clients to model best packaging solutions.
Time to market slashed
As planned, ‘Time to Market’ has been cut to a day at the Encase Test Drive Centre. What previously took weeks is now ‘done in a day’. Encase has created ‘step change’ and huge benefits for clients by bringing together all of the key players for a single day at its Leeds Test Drive Centre (TDC). They often include a supermarket buyer and brand manager, marketing and production managers from the manufacture. As new product packaging requirements are defined, it is created, ‘live’ on screen in front of them.
Encase TDC rapid-prototyping design minimises weight, ensures fit-for-purpose and ‘production ready’. The new packaging is optimised for conveyors, pallet-loads, storage, stacking, trucking and is shelf-ready. With design artwork, graphics and print added, the new packaging can be seen in 3D animation on ‘virtual’ displays in ‘virtual’ supermarkets. From the screen images, Encase’s computerised cutting table produces the first of these brand new boxes. After just one day, Each TDC visitor takes away a physical sample, 3D visuals and animations for colleagues.
Packaging Test Drive Success.pdf
Product case studies follow:
Product case studies: POPTray
Born of the TDC, Encase’s own POPTrayTM has provided a successful design solution for a number of retail ready applications. Being ‘retail ready’ is as specific to each product as the size for the pack itself. Conforming to the supermarket’s five easies;
easy to identify/recognise, easy to open; easy to merchandise, easy to shop and easy to recycle, this maxim presides as a fundamental influencer of all design decisions. The POPTrayTM conforms in every way with added features improving the aesthetic quality of the pack by removing tape and front face perforations. Delivering economies in transit and manufacture, an enhanced brand image, a one-touch display solution for store, whilst remaining cost neutral, the POPTrayTM really does tick all the TDC boxes.
Product case studies: EasiShelf
Often, the development of a TDC project will deliver innovations that can be adopted in broader application and the EasiShelfTM is a good example. Originally a solution as a shelf-ready display for a well known lubricant, the application of the design lends itself to a wide range of in-store products. Presenting an easily filled, quickly sealed shipping unit, the clean cut edges of the one touch display unit offer an economical, one-piece packaging solution.
Product case studies: RediBulk
Getting the design team around the table with the buyer, production and the supply chain coordinators is key to the success of the TDC. When the end user is also involved in the design process, time to market is dramatically reduced. Generating solutions quickly is what the TDC is all about and by bringing together key decision-makers, ideas can be thrashed out and progressed to solutions in no time at all. The RediBulkTM is retail-ready display solution evolved from such direct and targeted discussions. This cost effective transit and display system is a perfect example of the TDC delivering a solution quickly satisfying all elements of the supply chains and providing a cost effective, modern solution fit for purpose and adaptable to several environments.
Product case studies: Lighter packaging – is tons better!
Encase Test Drive Centre designs out packaging weight - right through the supply chain. UK supermarkets want to take weight out of packaging throughout the supply chain. With much of their packaging retail/shelf-ready (SRP), retailers and suppliers now want to reduce packaging weight. The business drivers for this include the EU Landfill Directive to halve the amount sent to landfill by 2013, reducing the cost to retailers of not complying with that directive and the cost of recycling packaging not sent to landfill. To achieve that, some companies are now talking to Encase.
At Encase, Group Sales Manager, David Hainsworth is dedicated to the same goals, “Reduced weight. Less paper. Less tonnage. Fewer square metres. That suits us! Fit-for-purpose designs at every stage of the supply chain are part of the way Encase offers retailers and their suppliers wide and exciting choice.” David considers Encase well invested with modern equipment to produce fit-for–purpose packaging, either for lighter use or high-performance packaging. He further emphasised the ‘Encase advantage’ as an independent corrugator, “We buy paper at market price but without compromising performance, through design we can use less paper. Encase does not have tonnage sales targets. Like our supermarket customers and their suppliers we also want to take the weight out of the packaging supply chain. It has taken a while but the majors can now see Encase as a genuine alternative.”
Product case studies: One-piece wonder – divides and conquers
A new one-piece divider is twenty percent lighter, reduces costs by a fifth and takes only a quarter of the pallet space. Packers assemble this one-piece divider fast, saving time and more money. In one fell swoop, Encase East Kilbride has transformed dividers for packers of glass or other fragile or breakable containers or products. In the drinks industry, whisky blenders have been first off the mark for UK and overseas markets. Made from a 100 percent recycled, B-flute corrugated test paper, this Encase innovation uses twenty percent less material and offers savings in weight, storage, and transport – an environmental and economic win. Assembly speed and ease may consign five-piece? and three-piece? dividers to history.
Customers benefit from quick decisions
The Encase structure ensures very short and fast communications, quick decision making and rapid response. According to Martin Costa, “We move very quickly and in the FMCG, RRP and SRP marketplace, speed matters as do cost and design. We try to hit all the right buttons for our customers.” Phil Lockwood agrees. He explained that from any Encase sales person in contact with a customer there are only two steps to first-line directors, normally via Group Sales Manager, David Hainsworth. That is also true for all Encase ‘front line’ staff in production, design, finance or shipping and gives quick and consistent decisions. Phil said, “Our fast Encase response on pricing and queries is welcomed by customers, especially trade customers.”
Quotes in moments please Encase customers
For Encase customers, the Abaca quoting and plant management system has really speeded the Encase response. With remote access, Encase quotes are almost instant, well presented, clear and e-mail delivered at electronic-speed.
“Now we don’t have to phone the office for a quote. A customer can phone me. I log in my laptop from the car and within minutes the quote has reached the customer by e-mail. It's fast, paperless, electronic and saves time and money,” said John Blaney at Encase East Kilbride. “Our customers, who order boxes to sell on, need quotes very fast. Now we can be certain that they don’t lose business, nor do we with quotes which are now always in time,” he said.
With the Abaca system running in all three plants, Encase has reduced quote times nationally to half-an-hour or even just a few minutes, compared with up to two days beforehand. The system gives plant managers valued, instant insight into complex business operations and it helps them run an even more efficient business.
Banbury Delivers
Steve Miller, now General Manager Banbury, is impressed with the excellent team he heads as it delivers to world-class standards from its Banbury base. With returns at next-to-nothing, they have raised the ‘On time, in full’ KPI to be steady at an average ninety-nine percent. Beyond that production average, customers are receiving exactly what they want, precisely when they want it.
With the other KPIs moving in line, Steve and his team are pleased with progress toward the opportunity of one-third more production at Banbury. “We are doing the same volume as six months ago in half the time with fewer people. That’s better all round. For customers we can meet price targets and delivery times. For us it is more efficient and better business,” he said.
Steve Miller is tough on discipline, tough but fair. He has eliminated the last trace of old-fashioned ‘custom and practice’ and insisted on the metrics and data essential to modern process improvement and improving quality and performance. Attendance is at its highest, machine speeds and throughput have increased and percentage waste continues to reduce. In every supplier audit Encase Banbury has achieved excellent results confirming its ISO and hygiene accreditations. In January 2009 it passed its BRC audit with flying colours.
Steve Miller’s expertise and management style has been welcomed by Banbury’s existing operational staff. His earlier success in building the International Paper company at Thrapston into one of the top five in 28-plant group means he is in no doubt that he can keep Encase Banbury as a bench-mark plant in the industry.
Multi-point gluer at Banbury
To support the growing demand for retail ready and shelf ready packaging Encase has installed a new multi-point gluer at its Banbury site. Manufactured by Duran Makina, the Omega Bella 170 multi-point gluer enables the production of straight-line, crash-lock, 4 and 6-point glued boxes and can convert a wide range of boards such as E,B, & C flutes as well as double-wall board.
Corrugation Sheet
Here is the Packaging Design 'Test Drive Centre' Launch edition of the Encase newsletter "Corrugation Sheet". Click on the front cover to see a pdf version.
