Action stations

Action Packaging Systems prides itself on going the extra mile for its customers; sometimes an extra 1,100 miles.

The Connecticut-based label converter has a business-wide mantra: ‘Do what others say you can’t.’ What this means is the company guarantees that the labels they print are delivered in at least five business days – whatever it takes.

The year was May 2011 and salesman Mike Gerrity got an order from a customer who needed a job turned around over a holiday weekend, but Action didn’t have the labelstock the job required.

Gerrity had an idea. He boarded an airplane bound for Wisconsin. He rented a truck, drove to Green Bay Packaging, loaded the truck with the materials, then drove 17 hours across five states to get back to the Ellington, Connecticut-based Action Packaging Systems where he met press operators who got the job out on time. ‘We encourage that kind of craziness,’ says president and CEO Doug Rice. ‘We do whatever we can to meet tight deliveries.’

Breaking all the rules

Action Packaging was offering rapid turnaround labels before it was fashionable. Often this commitment means committing the cardinal sins of label printing. ‘We’re breaking all the rules,’ Rice says. ‘We have no rules. Just get the customer the labels; we’ll sort it out later.’

Rice is unafraid to keep presses idle to make room for jobs when they come in. He’s known to interrupt print jobs if there’s an order placed that’s more time-sensitive. ‘We’ve been doing it forever,’ he says, and then with a smile adds, ‘because we didn’t know any better. We’ve been doing it for so long this way it is part of our culture.’

Rice concedes that that culture is difficult to maintain, especially as the business grows, but he believes the philosophy opens Action Packaging Systems to new opportunities. Rice started Action Packaging Systems in 1979 as a label broker. The first time he lost a big client because a label converter couldn’t deliver on time, was also the last. Rice in 1983 decided to print his own, and by 1984, he opened his first manufacturing plant in Connecticut.

Today, Action Packaging Systems also has a production facility in High Point, North Carolina, and also provides a line a Gold Seal label applicators and CTM Label Systems. The company employs 60 people.

Its business comes primarily from food and industrial labels, but a pair of new digital presses has opened up the health and beauty market.

Going digital

Action Packaging Systems has traditionally been a flexographic print shop with 11 Mark Andy and Propheteer International flexo presses between its two locations.

In 2011, Action Packaging Systems took the leap to digital with the installation of a Xeikon 3500, 20-inch press. Soon enough, it was looking for more speed. In October 2015, it was the first US customer to purchase Xeikon’s CX3, or Cheetah, a 13-inch five color digital press. The company liked it so much that four months later it traded in the 3500 press for a second CX3. It has two AB Graphic International finishing systems for digital jobs, the Digicon Series 2 and Digicon.

But Action Packaging Systems’ move to digital presses almost didn’t happen. Operations manager Rick Ferreira tried to talk Rice out of it. ‘I pushed for them not to go digital,’ Ferreira says matter-of-factly. ‘Doug wanted to go digital, but he could never tell me why, just that he wanted to. And that’s not enough or me.’

Ferreira, ever the pragmatist, wanted a defined revenue stream before considering the investment. Rice, however, didn’t want to fall behind other label converters who offered digital, and he envisioned greater flexibility with increased capacity. ‘I saw a lot more customers ordering a lot more SKUs a lot more often,’ Rice says. So they compromised, and for about a year Action Packaging Systems outsourced digital jobs until it developed a revenue stream to justify the investment.

So far it’s paid off. The Xeikon opened up new clients in the health and beauty industry, and having two digital presses gives the company the speed and capacity it needs. ‘Greater flexibility allows us to keep our five-day delivery promise,’ Rice said. ‘It’s a culture that’s very hard to manage as you scale up, but we’re consistently doing it.’