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All in the (Folding Carton) Family
August 1, 2009 By: Mark Arzoumanian Paperboard PackagingA third generation is now involved in running Indiana Carton. It's a new animal that has evolved from old school commodity thinking.
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.
 Ken H. Petty, Indiana Carton's chairman of the board, is pleased that his grandson, Ken D. Petty, is now working at the plant as vice president of operations. |
Simultaneously, a veteran management team was receiving offers to buy the business, which was always profitable. But the team hadn't been reinvesting those profits. The effects of this were beginning to show in the rising frequency of equipment repairs. IC had to start taking out loans. Tough decisions had to be made about its future and they had to be made quickly.
At a management meeting held in 2000 to discuss the company's future, Ken H. Petty, chairman of the board, became tired of all the talk and debate about IC's future. He slammed his fist down on the table and said, "If anyone can go to the third generation, we can."
It was a turning point. Ken's sons Dave, president, and Jim, vice president, realized that a new generation of Petty carton makers had to be groomed and a commitment to upgrading equipment had to occur.
At the time, Dave's son, Ken D. Petty, today the general manager, was working as a computer consultant. Dave's other son, Matt, was in college working on a business degree. Dave had been running machinery at IC since 1974. His brother, Jim, graduated college in 1978 and also ran machinery at the 164,000-sq-ft plant. They both were "weaned" on machinery, James says with a smile.
Close Call
After serving in World War II, Ken H. Petty started working at IC in 1949. He was glad to be working with the owner at the time, Nate Rubinson, who treated him like a son. But, even more importantly, he was happy to be working anywhere. After the war ended, he was stationed in Pisa, Italy, for a few years.
 The plant's six-color manroland 900 press replaced a Harris press that dates to 1977. Sheet productivity went from 5,000 per hour on the Harris to 14,000 per hour on the manroland. |
In Nov. 1948 he had his belongings packed and was ready to head home with the rest of his fighting comrades. The plane was delayed so he rescheduled his company to take a ship home. That plane crashed into a Swiss mountain because of fog. Everyone died.
As Petty's career progressed at IC, he had opportunities to purchase larger and larger pieces of the carton converter until by 1974 he owned all of it. For decades the company did well, even as the industries it served evolved. But by 2000 the company had to work at bringing in the third generation, which also included Alicia Petty MacDonald (now in sales and marketing) and Justin Petty (a sales account executive).
"It was a good idea for my sons to first go out into the big, bad world," says Dave. In January 2000, his son Ken graduated from Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, and started working as a manufacturing systems consultant. But then Larry Cather, IC's vice president of operations, had a heart attack. So a month later Ken joined the company in that same position.
It's exciting to see the advent of the next generation, states Dave, who has spent 35 years at IC. He has been its president since 1997.
"It has revitalized me," he says. "I want the company to do well for my kids and extended family. I'm still having fun coming into work."
While Ken was in college, IC developed an internship program so that third generation family members and other potential new employees could see what it was like to work in a folding carton plant. But getting a college education was always the first goal for all Petty family members.
Ken says working at IC while attending college helped him decide what he wanted to do in his career, although he never had an explicit conversation with his dad about the family business. However, he does remember his grandfather telling him that a job was there, if he wanted it and was qualified.
Happened Naturally
"I got lucky with the fit," he says. "It happened naturally. I moved around from within. My grandfather knows his family. He gave us the opportunity and we took it. Since 2000 we've retooled and it's a whole new show."
 Indiana Carton produced a six-color, award-winning carton on its manroland 900 press by using only three colors and the color of the boxboard itself. |
But keeping the company an ongoing enterprise solely by taking it to the next generation would by no means guarantee IC's survival in a consolidating and increasingly competitive industry. When Ken H. Petty worked at IC in the 1950s it's bread and butter business was making permanent press shirt cartons. It was a stock box business. That's history now.
Then its business evolved into producing pizza cartons. But the corrugated container industry usurped that niche. Today IC is a national maker of custom folding cartons for in-store and wholesale bakeries, convenience stores, and a small number of commercial retailers. It is distinguishing itself by improving its graphic design capabilities (think custom printing of orders) and constantly working to shorten lead times, which includes not only providing warehousing options for its customers (they pay for it) but also having its boxboard suppliers provide it with rolls on more of an as-needed basis.
Earlier this year, it won an Excellence Award in the Paperboard Packaging Council's National Paperboard Packaging Competition for its Bakers Pride bakery box.
The plant's 75 employees (many with more than 20 years on the job) belong to a union but the Petty family has always operated on a give-and-take basis, which Ken Petty learned from his grandfather. IC's management takes pride in staying out of its employees' way.
"We don't send people home when there isn't enough work to do," Ken D. Petty stresses. "We will have them work on continuous improvement projects in order to give them 40 hours of work a week."
All the Pettys stress the importance of IC's people.
"At Indiana Carton, the people you're dealing with today will be the people you will be dealing with 15, 20 years from now," says Jim Petty. "You have a comfort zone with us. You're going to be dealing with one or another Petty."
Long Overdue Equipment Upgrade
Over the past decade, Indiana Carton (IC) has gone through a significant makeover. It has replaced almost every machine center in the shop, starting with its late 2006 decision to purchase a 56-in., six-color manroland 900 printing press with continuous feed and delivery and an infrared dryer. It was installed in first quarter 2007 and replaced the second to last press (60-in., six-color) ever made by Harris.
Ken D. Petty, vice president of operations, points out that the manroland press has a Generation 2 Sentinel ink management system that uses electronic ink monitoring to read the ink tray. This allows the plant to more accurately track the press' ink use and reduce waste. The plant also employs a closed-loop water filtration system from Flow Clear that cuts down on the plant's chemical use and reduces its carbon footprint.
On the converting side, three years ago IC bought a Bobst Spanthera 145 PER diecutter to complement its Bobst 142 E diecutter. This move eliminated the plant's stripping department and improved blank quality. It runs two new Bobst Alpina folder-gluers outfitted with the latest HHS glue system technology. It also purchased a Good and Strong sheeter from Taiwan. Its dual-fly knife gives the plant clean, square sheets. The sheeter has numerous decurler rollers, static elimination bars, and a reject gate to ensure flat, consistent sheets with no static.
""I can call manroland and Bobst and troubleshoot with both of them," says Petty. "It saves visits from their technicians. Our newest Bobst folder-gluer [one of three the plant operates] can be monitored from Roseland, N.J. [Bobst's U.S. headquarters]. No one beats Bobst's support.
"I trust in manroland's abilities; it has been very patient with us. We purchased its people as much as the press. The same holds true with Bobst and JM Equipment [the U.S. representative for the Good and Strong sheeter]. When we brought in Bobst for training [on the new diecutter], our employees were initially insulted that we thought they needed more training. But now they're fine with it as they've learned many new troubleshooting skills."
IC pays a bit of a premium for this service, but that's more than offset by the security found in the backup provided by these companies, he adds.
Petty is not only impressed with the consistency of the sheets coming off the manroland press, but also with such press features as Printnet and Telepresence. Printnet's connectivity to the prepress department allows the press operator to easily repeat jobs by automatically pulling up all press settings from the previous job. Telepresence is a remote press diagnosis and service support system.
"Before the press arrived, we sent out two supervisors and four operators to Chicago for training, to take the 'scare factor' out," Petty states. "We also received training grants from the State of Indiana."
So when the new press hit speeds of 14,000 sheets per hour (versus the 5,000 sheets per hour on the Harris), the operators handled the increased production with confidence.
"Manroland takes care of you after the installation," Petty adds. "It can recommend fountain solutions and has conducted one-day press support visits here."
But there's always room for improvement. For example, he would like to see better press waste cleanup.
Other plant upgrades include revamped employee areas, an improved lighting system, and the installation of a tool crib. Printing plates used to be imaged on the outside, but now they're done in-house in a climate-controlled plate room using an AGFA Avalon plate maker. In addition, IC strengthened its customer service and graphic arts departments and bought Advanced Software enterprise resource software to more efficiently serve its clients.
