Fotis values creative ideas and execution

Food & Drug Packaging, July, 2005 by Joanna Cosgrove

Nick Fotis isn't most proud about what he puts into packaging, he's most proud about what he takes away from it. That's not to say he isn't a creative, hands-on guy, he just has a different perception about what makes a package good and what makes a package great.

In his day-to-day role as director of Cardinal Health's Packaging Technology Center, Nick oversees the development of every package system, motivating his staff with the credo "Ask for the impossible, settle for the amazing."

"People rise to your level of expectations," he says. "This industry attracts creative people, but it's latent until you give them a deadline and cost constraints and all of a sudden they are able to come up with amazing things."

Nick's career in packaging began in 1983 with Baxter Healthcare. It's also where he learned the firsthand value of eliminating the excess. "We took I.V. [intravenous] sets that used to be in folding board carton set and put them into flexible thermoform-fill-seal packaging," he recalls. The resulting switch to lighter flexible packaging yielded a hefty $2 million in materials savings, plus an eightfold savings in shipping and sterilizing costs, for a total cost reduction of $10 million.

It was also at Baxter that Nick worked on the pearl of his resume: an I.V. solutions device used aboard the Space Shuttle.

"The packaging challenge was to select the right materials to make it robust and openable in space," he commented. "It was a PVC product and if PVC burns it's toxic, so we needed to put it inside of a foil pouch."

But a more recent project at Cardinal stands out as the most creative execution under Nick's watch. The Hybrid Pouch evolved after Nick challenged David Rudd, senior engineering specialist, to conceptualize a new package for drapes and gowns. They began by brainstorming how things might be packaged in the future, a la Star Trek.

"David came up with a creative option," Nick recounts. "Instead of using polybags that had a vent attached by a converter, David worked with Multivac to devise an equipment attachment capable of cutting a hole in the top web of the thermoform-fill-seal package, indexing a patch of Tyvek then sealing it on, all of which is done on-line. David effectively saved a third of the cost on Tyvek because his rectangular design replaced a circular one and requires no paper insert."

It's this kind of cost-cutting that most excites Nick because of its long term implications.

"Indirectly we help provide health care to poor people," he says. "We've taken millions of dollars out of packaging and the trickle-down effect of that is that hospitals are able to maintain their prices, which are in turn, enabling them to find ways to write off service charges for those who can't afford the care."

Nick's resourcefully frugal mindset is complemented by the approach that everyone should be treated as if they were a customer in need, from his co-workers and outward to his suppliers. It's this attitude that's propelled his team to excel in both packaging creativity and customer satisfaction.