Linpac displays turns corrugated into cash with customized point-of-purchase designs

Pulp & Paper, May 2003 by Ferguson, Kelly

SPECIAL FEATURE:

CUSTOMERS IN FOCUS

A part of the Linpac Group and developer of made-to-order point-of-purchase displays, Linpac Displays sees the result of sheet quality and fast turnaround times

Greg Moore cares about the symmetry of Michael Jordan's ears and the complexion of Faith Hill. As he looks from one to the other while sitting in his office, he comments that those are just some of the things he has to worry about.

Why does the general manager of a packaging display facility in Middle Tennessee concern himself with a basketball superstar's lobes and a country singer's facial features? Because for customers using point-of-purchase displays, such seemingly minor details matter.The standup cutouts of Jordan and Hill in Moore's Tullahoma, Tenn., office-along with other Linpac Display designs for booksellers and pharmaceutical companies-are reminders to Moore of his customers' demands for such things as graphic quality and color consistency.

Linpac Displays is one of several enduse divisions for Linpac Inc., the North American paper and packaging products arm of U.K.-based Linpac Group. The Tennessee facility is the end of the line for the intercompany containerboard supply chain, which includes Linpac sheet feeder plants in Atlanta, Greensboro, N.C., and Dallas/FortWorth, preceded by the Linpac Paper recycled linerboard and corrugating medium mill in Cowpens, S.C.

The company also has a recovered paper collection arm, Greenville Recycling, just outside of Greenville, S.C., which is one of the main fiber suppliers to the Cowpens mill. Linpac Displays sends all of its recovered paper waste back to the Cowpens mill.

REORGANIZED FOR SUCCESS. The Tullahoma facility was opened in 1984 as an independent display provider called Eagle Displays, started by entrepreneur Wayne Martin. Martin ran the plant himself until the end of 1997, when it was purchased by Linpac. Moore, who came to the company from Rock-Tenn in 1998, said that one of the efforts made early on by plant management was to "reinvent itself" as part of a larger organization, thus changing the name to Linpac Displays.

Moore comments that Linpac Inc. management was somewhat surprised by this desire to make a name change since they expected Eagle Display employees to be more attached to the name. "We felt like it was important for our customers to understand that we weren't just a one-- plant operation, but that we were part of a bigger organization that could support us in what we were trying to do," he says.

Next on the reinvention list for Moore and the facility was to make organizational changes, including modifying job responsibilities for some employees. "We had a great, core group of people who were very talented, but we needed a structure and environment that could eliminate the barriers that kept them from being creative and service oriented," Moore says.

Also part of that organizational change was the implementation of a formal quality system. "We felt this was important for us to do, mainly because in the display business almost every job is brand new, every time," Moore says. Linpac Displays' director of sales, Lisa Mitchell, estimates that only 10 to 20% of orders are direct repeats. "It's not even as much as it used to be," she says, "because we had a certain group of customers that did rerun orders, but they've moved away from that."

Moore said that as a result of this further move toward customization, there was a need to do more quality planning on the front end. "We hired a full-time quality assurance manager from the automotive industry, and he really brought the formality that we needed-not to the point that it hinders our flexibility but that it provides a good framework that we can work within," Moore says of Bob Huffines, Linpac Displays' quality manager.

Moore then goes on to point out that while it may sound somewhat trite, the two most significant catalysts for change at Linpac Displays during this time were safety and quality. "Change for anyone is hard, and it's especially hard sometimes with new owners. We had to have a catalyst that everybody could buy into. We've driven change throughout the organization with safety and quality because nobody can take issue with those."

As evidence of the focus on safety, Moore points out that in 1997, Linpac Displays had 27 OSHA recordable accidents. In the past three years, the plant hasn't had a lost-time accident, and it hasn't had an OSHA recordable accident in almost a year and a half. "We've really turned the corner in terms of safety and quality and found that they tie together in many ways, such as in housekeeping and organizational support," he says.

WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANTS.

Linpac Displays sells into a wide variety of markets, and Mitchell comments that one of the fun parts of the job for the facility's employees is that many times they get to see items before they're launched to the public. Customers include office products manufacturers (Sanford Corp.,AveryDennison, Dixon Ticonderoga); publishers (Thomas Nelson, Zondervan, Provident Music); candy companies (Perfetti van Melle); pharmaceutical companies (Schering-Plough); and advertising and marketing agencies.