Narrow investments balance wider portfolio

Wide format specialist Flower City Printing/Packaging has invested in flexography and digital, expanding its full service business platform, writes Danielle Jerschefske

Flower City Printing in Rochester, New York, got its start in 1970 as a commercial printer in the offset world servicing the consumer-facing manufacturing firms in the upstate New York area. As the business grew and evolved to meet the various needs of the company’s broad customer base, a decision was eventually made to invest in a wide format 55” KBA Planeta to print cut and stack labels. This investment beat a successful path forward in the larger display and POP markets.

Today Flower City continues to print a wide variety of work in the food and beverage markets for national retail chains and consumer product companies. It offers a wide range of print services including displays, labels, folding cartons, kit-packing and fulfillment, POP materials and garment tags. President Bill Oliveri explains, ‘In this way our customers deal with one point rather than multiple, allowing them the flexibility to easily obtain efficient and speedy production no matter what volume, type and size of product they require. ’

As the market evolved towards shorter runs printed more frequently, the converter adopted narrower technology to maintain a profitable business model. It has also invested in a complex, internally developed software system that streamlines the scheduling and production of these various print routes.

Narrow web expansion

Flower City first invested in flexography a couple years ago, adding an 8-color 13” Nilpeter FB press. Since then the converter has experienced significant growth in its flexographic business in two key ways.

Firstly by pulling offset work from the wider sheet fed presses for efficiency in production.  ‘A lot of our existing work fits flexo better,’ explains Oliveri. ‘We are also expanding and capturing new business with more work suited to flexo from our current customer base.’

The pressures towards lower volume label work persuaded the converter’s management to expand the company’s flexo capability and to seriously review digital printing options.

Kirk Ellsworth is general manager of the Lee Road facility, housing the flexographic and kit-packing and fulfillment departments. ‘Our offset production numbers showed more waste in shorter runs and multiple make-ready situations than we knew would be the case for a flexo press,’ says Ellsworth.  ‘Enough work was small enough to necessitate the ultra-short run capability that only digital printing can handle.’

Flower City selected the Nilpeter Caslon hybrid option with inline FA-4 flexographic printing because of the inherent flexibility of integrating flexo and digital printing processes. The press is configured with four flexo stations and two die stations around the Caslon 4-color inkjet module.

The 16” Caslon hybrid was installed in May 2011, followed quickly by the installation of a stand-alone 12-color all UV 16” FA-4 in July 2011.

‘The Caslon supports effective production of lower quantities while keeping cost down, and we don’t have to compromise with the quality,’ says Ellsworth.

Several people within Flower City have been trained to run the Caslon. The main operator is a successful homegrown employee with a digital background. The company gave him flexo experience on its existing Nilpeter FB press prior to the hybrid installation. Now operators have the ability to tag team work using their skills and experience operating a multitude of printing processes.

‘This technology has surpassed our expectations as far as quality and capabilities,’ says Oliveri.

The converter produces a lot of sheeted labels within its flexo division, as well as tags and narrow-web work on card stock, and is producing some PS and supported film materials. There are sheeters on all of the flexo machines. All digital plates are manufactured in-house for both the offset and flexo sides of the business.

Many of the labels produced at Flower City are still produced using its wide format offset machinery because of the nature of the work. These same machines are used to produce the larger POP, retail display signage and carton packaging work. There are a total of nine presses from 40” to 73”; two to eight colors and inline UV capabilities.

Multiple locations

Flower City operates with over 300 employees at three locations within Rochester.  One plant is dedicated to converting rolls to sheets for offset production; another houses the offset presses, main offices and finishing department; the third plant is where flexographic and digital labels and tags are produced, and where kit-packing and fulfillment takes place along with warehousing.

The converter’s e-scheduling system is outstanding. It orchestrates the various streams of business within this unique and complex printing operation. A handful of associates collaborated to write the code for this visually friendly system. In the scheduling department located in the main offset building, there are 14 monitors that give detailed snapshots of orders to the minute, which can be pulled up on any internal computer.

The various run speeds of the presses, average make ready times, average time required to complete repeat orders and more production details like shift hours – there are three shifts Monday through Saturday – have been programmed behind the code. The system organizes and can recall data from order placement through fulfillment. Each plant with its respective responsibilities and processes is linked together.

This system is critical to the company’s success, particularly when it comes to kit-packing, which refers to the printing, finishing and organizing of in-store displays and shelf promotions. Often customer work is delivered to multiple locations, so production and fulfillment have to be in constant communication to ensure on-time delivery without any pieces of the kit missing upon delivery.

One kit-packing customer can have as many as 150 items such as signs, banners, danglers, shelf talkers, and labels that must be packed into one kit and delivered to hundreds or even thousands of retail outlets. All this is scheduled within the customized management software.

Finish with flourish

Flower City’s finishing department is filled with state of the art equipment and has an extensive die database so that operators and assistants are able to find the required tooling quickly.

There’s a machine for adhering materials together, two new flexo folder/gluers recently added to two older systems for a total of four, straight guillotine cutters, saddle stitchers, and embossing equipment. If a customer is looking for a particular look or feel for their print communication, Flower City can make it happen.  

The company has full-time structural designers on-board who use CAD systems to create virtual folding cartons and POP signs. It will also produce prototypes for customers to experience an idea more fully.

Flower City has made the shrewd decision to incorporate narrow web roll-fed flexo and digital technology into its business to expand the services it can offer. It is a novel and fascinating business model.

Sustainability

Flower City Printing has long been a steward of the environment. The environment has been taken into account with all manufacturing and capital investment decisions since the business started. The converter has been recycling its paper for a number of years and is Chain of Custody certified with PEFC, SFI and FSC forestry stewardship programs.

For the last five years the converter has pumped offset press coatings and inks direct to presses thereby eliminating the use of 12,000 to 18,000 ink cans each year. And in the last nine months the converter has installed a system that recaptures solvents to be re-used in the offset printing process.

Oliveri says, ‘Sustainability is not only a buzz word. We all have the responsibility to leave the planet as a nice place for future generations
to enjoy.’

‘Flower City’ Lilacs

In 1892 20 varieties of lilacs were brought to Highland Park in Rochester, New York after an endowment of 20 acres of land in 1888. Frederick Law Olmsted, famous for designing New York City’s Central Park, was responsible for the final development of Highland Park. Today over 500 varieties of lilacs cover 14 percent of the park’s acres. Rochester's famous Lilac Festival features a beautiful array of blooming flowers, attractions, and special events that signal the arrival of spring.

Pictured: The Nilpeter Caslon hybrid press offered Flower City production flexibility

This issue was published in L&L issue 4, 2012