Nov/ Dec 2020 AICC BoxScore: Are Your Salespeople SELLING NAKED?

A PUBLICATION OF AICC, THE INDEPENDENT PACKAGING ASSOCIATION

Are Your Salespeople

November/December 2020 Volume 24, No. 6

SELLING NAKED?

The pandemic has left many scrambling, but agility and adaptation can go a long way toward regaining sales success ALSO INSIDE The Campus Connection AICC’s 2020 Annual Report Introducing: Foundation for Packaging Education

TABLE OF CONTENTS November/December 2020 • Volume 24, No.6

COLUMNS

3

CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

4

SCORING BOXES

8

LEGISLATIVE REPORT

12

MEMBERS MEETING

14

ASK RALPH

16

ASK TOM

18

SELLING TODAY

22

ANDRAGOGY

24

LEADERSHIP

56

THE ASSOCIATE ADVANTAGE

FEATURES

60

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

34

68

THE FINAL SCORE

ON THE COVER Description

ARE YOUR SALESPEOPLE SELLING NAKED? The pandemic has left many scrambling, but agility and adaptation can go a long way toward regaining sales success

42

AICC’S 2020 ANNUAL REPORT AICC and its members pivoted significantly in FY 2020

54

42

THE CAMPUS CONNECTION Networking with local schools can connect you with the next generation of productive employees

48

34

INTRODUCING AICC’S FOUNDATION FOR PACKAGING EDUCATION Another movement toward a better-trained workforce

48

DEPARTMENTS

10

WELCOME, NEW & RETURNING MEMBERS

26

AICC INNOVATION

30

MEMBER PROFILE

64

ICPF UPDATE

54

BoxScore is published bimonthly by AICC, The Independent Packaging Association, PO Box 25708, Alexandria, VA 22313, USA. Rates for reprints and permissions of articles printed are available upon request. The statements and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of AICC. The publisher reserves the right to accept or reject any editorial or advertising matter at its discretion. The publisher is not responsible for claims made by advertisers. POSTMASTER: Send change of address to BoxScore, AICC, PO Box 25708, Alexandria, VA 22313, USA. ©2020 AICC. All rights reserved.

Visit www.aiccboxscore.org for Member News and even more great columns.

Scan the QR code to check them out!

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

1

OFFICERS Chairman: Jay Carman, StandFast Packaging Group, Carol Stream, Illinois First Vice Chairman: Gene Marino, Akers Packaging Service Group, Chicago, Illinois Vice Chairmen: Jana Harris, Harris Packaging/American Carton, Haltom City, Texas Matt Davis, Packaging Express, Colorado Springs, Colorado Gary Brewer, Package Crafters, High Point, North Carolina Immediate Past Chairman: Joseph M. Palmeri, Jamestown Container Cos., Macedonia, Ohio Chairman, Past Chairmen’s Council: Al Hoodwin, Michigan City Paper Box, Michigan City, Indiana President: Michael D’Angelo, AICC Headquarters, Alexandria, Virginia Secretary/General Counsel: David P. Goch, Webster, Chamberlain & Bean, Washington, DC Counsel Emeritus: Paul H. Vishny, Esq., Chicago, Illinois AICC Canada Director: Renee Annis DIRECTORS West: David DeLine, DeLine Box Co., Denver, Colorado Southwest: Eric Elgin, Oklahoma Interpack, Muscogee, Oklahoma Southeast: Ben DeSollar, Sumter Packaging Corp., Sumter, South Carolina Midwest: Casey Shaw, Batavia Container Inc., Batavia, Illinois Great Lakes: Mike Schaefer,Tavens Packaging & Display, Bedford Heights, Ohio Northeast: Stuart Fenkel, McLean Packaging, Pennsauken, NJ AICC Canada: Terri-Lynn Levesque, Royal Containers Ltd., Brampton, Ontario, Canada AICC México: Juan Javier Gonzalez, Cartró, S.A.P.I. de C.V. (CP), Tepotzotlán, Mexico OVERSEAS DIRECTOR Kim Nelson, Royal Containers Ltd., Brampton, Ontario, Canada

DIRECTORS AT LARGE Finn MacDonald, Independent II, Louisville, Kentucky Guy Ockerlund, OxBox, Addison, Illinois Kevin Ausburn, SMC Packaging Group, Springfield, Missouri Nelva Walz EMERGING LEADER DELEGATES Daniel Brettschneider, CST Systems, Kennesaw, Georgia Cassi Malone, Corrugated Supplies Co. LLC, Chicago, Illinois ASSOCIATE MEMBER DIRECTORS Chairman: Pat Szany, American Corrugated Machine Corp., Indian Trail, North Carolina Vice Chairman: Joseph Morelli, Huston Patterson Printers, Decatur, Illinois Secretary: Greg Jones, Sun Automation, Glen Arm, Maryland Associate Board Director: Tim Connell, A.G. Stacker Inc., Weyers Cave, Virginia Immediate Past Chairman, Associate Members: David Burgess, JB Machinery, Weston, Connecticut ADVISORS TO THE CHAIRMAN Greg Tucker, Bay Cities, Pico Rivera, California Jerry Frisch, Wasatch Container, North Salt Lake, Utah Pat Szany, American Corrugated Machine Corp., Indian Trail, North Carolina PUBLICATION STAFF Publisher: Michael D'Angelo, mdangelo@aiccbox.org Editor: Virginia Humphrey, vhumphrey@aiccbox.org

SUBMIT EDITORIAL IDEAS, NEWS & LETTERS TO: BoxScore@theYGSgroup.com CONTRIBUTORS Maria Frustaci, Director of Administration and Director of Latin America Cindy Huber, Director of Conventions & Meetings Chelsea May, Education and Training Manager Laura Mihalick, Senior Meeting Manager Patrick Moore, Member Relations Coordinator Taryn Pyle, Director of Training, Education & Professional Development Alyce Ryan, Marketing Manager Steve Young, Ambassador-at-Large Richard M. Flaherty, President, ICPF ADVERTISING Information: Virginia Humphrey, vhumphrey@aiccbox.org Opportunities: Taryn Pyle 703-535-1391 • tpyle@aiccbox.org AICC PO Box 25708 Alexandria, VA 22313 Phone 703-836-2422 Toll-free 877-836-2422 Fax 703-836-2795 www.aiccbox.org

EDITORIAL/DESIGN SERVICES The YGS Group • www.theYGSgroup.com Vice President: Serena L. Spiezio Content & Copy Director: Craig Lauer Managing Editor: Jessica Price Senior Managing Editor: Sam Hoffmeister Copy Editor: Steve Kennedy Art Director: Alex Straughan Account Manager: Max Lalwani

ABOUT AICC PROVIDING BOXMAKERS WITH THE KNOWLEDGE NEEDED TO THRIVE IN THE PAPER-BASED PACKAGING INDUSTRY SINCE 1974 We are a growing membership association that serves independent corrugated, folding carton, and rigid box manufacturers and suppliers with education and information in print, in person, and online. AICC membership is for the full company and employees at all locations have access to member benefits. AICC offers free online education to all members to help the individual maximize their potential and the member company maximize its profit.

WHEN YOU INVEST AND ENGAGE, AICC DELIVERS SUCCESS.

Chairman’s Message

The Fundamental Things (Still) Apply

T

he box business is good. I am sure that you have noticed what I have noticed: Box plants are running a lot of product out of their doors.

Some independents have reported to AICC that the first half of 2020 was better than the first half of 2019, despite lockdowns that dashed the growth of the economy.

Analysts are sharing information about a “tightening” of certain grades in the board markets. Box shipments are up during a recession. Has that ever happened?

Markets matter, and a boxmaker’s success in 2020 has a lot to do with its mix. Food and certain domestic products have been strong due to supply chain disruptions, consumers spending more time at home, and old-fashioned hoarding of certain products.

The industrial market has not fared as well. And the last quarter of the year is usually a busy time for the box business.

Meanwhile, there does not seem to be anything settled relating to the pandemic.

The vaccine remains elusive—as early as next month or sometime in the next year. It seems that people are adapting to the pandemic and are balancing, as best they can, life indoors and outdoors.

So, decisions are on the horizon. If you have teams working from their homes, when is it time to bring them back? Should you bring them back? Have you rethought your office layouts with the same care that you did reconfiguring your policies regarding shift changes and breaks for your manufacturing team members? You are beginning to budget for 2021—what does your crystal ball look like? Will your markets stand up to a further prolonged pandemic?

You have likely already pivoted your business on several fronts in 2020. Are you prepared to do so again? And again? If you are enjoying a positive effect on your business today, it is as essential that you truly understand why as it is important to understand why if your numbers are down. And for the same reason, your business’s future depends on it.

In the July/August edition of BoxScore, which you received what already seems a lifetime ago, I wrote in this column about the pillars of your business and how you need to continue to rely on them in a world turned into something unforeseen by something unimaginable. You may be on your third or fourth 2020 playbook by now—many businesses are—but those pillars still apply, and I repeat them here: numbers, customers, and operations. These must be taken into consideration in all your planning and next steps.

Despite your pillars and your plans, 2020 continues throwing a steady stream of curveballs. AICC has introduced a business interruption agreement template that can be used to ensure that, if the pandemic, a hurricane, a fire, or some other 2020 event takes a machine center, a group of team members, or your plant down temporarily, you have a solution in place to serve your customers. It is free for AICC members, just like so many other great AICC programs and services. Visit the online store at www.aiccbox.org/store.

Jay Carman President, StandFast Packaging Group Chairman, AICC BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

3

Scoring Boxes

An Update on Coronavirus-Era Box Shipments

BY DICK STORAT

4

BOXSCORE November/December 2020

Percent Change in Production (Period Over Prior Period)

3.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.0% -1.0% -2.0% -3.0% -4.0% -5.0% -6.0% 2015

2016

2017

2018

Nondurable Goods

2019

1H2019–20

Corrugated

Source: FRB, FBA

Food Production

Index (2012 = 100)

C

OVID-19 remains at the center of our social, political, and economic lives, as it has since February. Yet, corrugated shipments have been significantly stronger than predicted by the traditional relationship between the growth of manufacturing output and domestic box demand. In this article, we will examine the traditional relationships between production of fast-moving consumer goods and the corrugated packaging they consume, and offer some reasons for the current unusual strength of box shipments.

Over the past five years, the relationship between the annual growth rate of U.S. production of consumer nondurable goods and corrugated shipments has tracked fairly closely, as the chart at top right shows. In four of the five years between 2015 and 2019, box shipments have grown faster than production of consumer nondurable goods by 1 to 3 percentage points in any given year. However, the spread has widened significantly to a 6.5 percentage-point gap during the first half of this year.

While no one knows for sure what has caused this favorable divergence, there are a few potential reasons why shipments would have grown as nondurable goods manufacturing plunged at a record rate during the first half of this year in response to the quarantine and social distancing practices that were implemented to contain the spread of COVID-19.

The first contributor to box shipments remaining stronger than nondurable goods is that food production accounts for more than 40% of box shipments, according to Fibre Box Association data. Food is perhaps the most essential product that consumers need during a recession. As shown in the chart at bottom right, domestic production of

118.0

2.50%

116.0

2.00%

114.0

1.50%

112.0

1.00% 0.50%

110.0

0.00%

108.0

-0.50%

106.0

-1.00%

104.0

-1.50%

102.0

-2.00%

100.0

-2.50%

98.0

JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

2018

2019

2020

-3.00%

Percent Change Year-to-Date

Source: Federal Reserve

food fell by only 2.6% during the first half of this year, 2.5 percentage points less than the concurrent drop in nondurable goods production.

Since May, domestic food production has grown each month, so that by the

end of August, it had essentially reached its pre-pandemic level of output. The chart on page six shows two additional anomalies. In January, February, and the portion of March before quarantine procedures were put in place, there

Scoring Boxes

Quarterly E-commerce Retail Sales as Percent of Quarterly Retail Sales 18% 16% 14% 12% 10% 8% 6% 4% 2% 0% 20 1Q 3Q 19 1Q

3Q 18 1Q

3Q 17 1Q

3Q 16 1Q

3Q 15 1Q

3Q 14 1Q

3Q 13 1Q

3Q 12 1Q

3Q 11 1Q

3Q 10 20

was panic buying and consequential overstocking of pantry shelves in anticipation of difficulty in resupplying commodity foods such as flour and sugar, as well as paper products and other essential household cleaning and sanitizing supplies. Manufacturers holding lean inventories were unable to keep up with spiking demand, causing grocery store buyers to search frantically for alternative suppliers. Then in April and May, food production dropped sharply, as pandemic precautions caused either full or partial curtailment of many food production facilities, further causing grocery store buyers to scramble to find alternative producers who could meet their needs.

Higher levels of box shipments were shipped initially to meet the increased unpackaged product demand. Also, as buyers found suppliers who could help fill the demand, the normal levels of packaging efficiency were not always achieved, again resulting in a higher-than-normal amount of boxes being shipped to alternative producers.

Another unanticipated factor was the extent of the supply disruption as consumers were unable to get as much of their nutrition from eateries of all types and had to find it in grocery stores.

Generally, food shipments are shipped

Source: Census Bureau

to grocery stores in smaller quantities and are more corrugated-intensive than shipments of food ingredients to restaurants. This also worked to propel box shipments to higher levels than normal.

During the pandemic, shoppers increased online purchases of food and other goods at an unprecedented rate.

Online sales soared dramatically, up by 30% in the first half of this year.

E-commerce sales accounted for 16% of all retail sales in the second quarter, up from less than 12% in the first quarter of 2020, as the chart above shows.

Packaging of online sales is more corrugated-intensive than products delivered through the traditional supply chain, even though online retailers have made great strides to improve the efficiency of their packaging materials.

Just the sheer magnitude of the growth with its long list of new suppliers has affected packaging intensity in a way that has bolstered box shipments this year.

To a large degree, these factors are transient, even though the acceleration of online shopping into areas such as grocery and clothing sales will elevate the growth of online sales going forward. As time moves on, supply chain disruptions will be ironed out, restaurants will reopen more completely, and the traditional relationships between the goods produced by the nation’s manufacturers and the efficient use of corrugated packaging are likely to be restored.

Dick Storat is president of Richard Storat & Associates.

He can be reached at 610-282-6033 or storatre@aol.com.

6

BOXSCORE November/December 2020

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Legislative Report

How Candidates’ Platforms Compare for Manufacturing

BY ERIC ELGIN

B

y the time you read this article, one of the two presidential candidates will have been elected the next president of the United States—or so we can hope—and the makeup of the 117th Congress will also be more or less known. Both parties and their candidates have decidedly differing views of how to manage our economy, the role of government versus free enterprise, and the general health

of our labor force and manufacturing sector. So as the dust settles here at the end of a tumultuous year, what can we in business expect from whoever now has the reins of power? The next page contains a snapshot on the key issues of taxes, labor, and energy and environment. BoxScore offers this side-by-side comparison without any editorial comment so as to allow readers to come to their own conclusions of what to expect

in the coming year from elected officials in the executive and legislative branches of government.

Eric Elgin is owner of Oklahoma Interpak and chairman of AICC’s Government Affairs subcommittee. He can be reached at 918-687-1681 or eric@okinterpak.com.

Electricity Procurement

Sustainability

ALL THINGS ENERGY

Facility Assessment

TRUSTED INDUSTRY LEADER SINCE 1996 UNBIASED SOLUTION TECHNOLOGIES Your Industry Expert: Carolyn Johnson, CEP, EMP 800-520-6685 D: 667.330.1137 cjohnson@appienergy.com www.appienergy.com

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

Natural Gas Management

Energy Efficiency

Legislative Report

Democratic Party

Republican Party TAXES

2017 Tax Cuts (Corporate)

• Raise tax on corporations from 21% to 28% • Impose new minimum tax on U.S. companies • Provide incentives (unspecified) to encourage domestic production

2017 Tax Cuts (Individual)

• Retain 2017 individual cuts for households making less than $400,000 • Mandate purchase of health insurance • Increase top individual rate to 39.6% from 37% • Repeal 20% deduction from pass-through business income • Repeal $10,000 cap on state and local taxes • Double top capital gains rate to 39.6% on households exceeding $1 million • Propose taxing unrealized capital gains upon death of asset holder

2017 Tax Cuts (Corporate)

2017 Tax Cuts (Individual)

• Retain 21% corporate rate and faster write-off of capital expenditures

• Many individual cuts enacted in 2017 expire in 2025; Republican platform seeks to make them permanent • Retain $10,000 cap on state and local taxes • Cut capital gains rate to 15% or 18.8% from current 23.8%

LABOR FORCE Paid Sick and Family Leave

• Provide 12 weeks paid leave for all workers

Paid Sick and Family Leave

• No mention of paid sick and family leave

Minimum Wage

• $15 federal minimum wage

Minimum Wage

• Minimum wage should be handled at the state level

Unions

• Supports full transparency for unionized workers of union trust funds and executive compensation • Support the right of states to enact “Right to Work” laws • Unionization of federal workers should be subject to congressional oversight

Unions

• Pass the PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act • Repeal “Right to Work” laws • Pass the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, guaranteeing bargaining rights to public employees

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT Climate Energy

• Will rejoin Paris Climate Accord • Will achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050 • Will eliminate carbon pollution from power plants by 2035 through technology-neutral standards for clean energy and energy efficiency • Will ban new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters

Climate Energy

• Rejects Paris Climate Accord • Will do away with [the Obama administration’s] Clean Power Plan, which has been stayed by the Supreme Court • Supports development of all forms of energy that are marketable in a free economy without subsidies, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower.

• Opposes any carbon tax

Sources: Democratic National Committee (www.democrats.org); Republican National Committee (www.gop.com)

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

9

New Members

Welcome, New & Returning Members!

DS SMITH 600 Peachtree St. NE, Suite 4200 Atlanta, GA 30308 Phone: 804-366-7163 www.dssmith.com

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

C.L. RABB BRYAN RABB CEO 103 Wolfpack Rd. Gastonia, NC 28056 Phone: 704-865-0295 clrabb.com

PRO SERVICES CURT PETERSEN President 8132 Merchant Plaza Portage, MI 49002 Phone: 269-327-2322 www.prosatwork.com

Ë?Empowering flexibility

FOLDING CARTON

Accelerating the pace Highly automated production lines which transform folding carton into boxes in no time. Cost-saving, efficient solutions that give you the versatility and productivity you need to be one step ahead.

www.bobst.com

Members Meeting

Looking Ahead to Meeting Again (But in the Meantime)

A

ICC members have been engaged more than ever before. Now is the time to make sure your team has access to the knowledge, the expertise, and the experience of their peers to keep your business running at peak efficiency. AICC membership helps you do just that.

AICC has evolved to make timely, relevant programming available to you and all the members of your team easier and even more valuable—starting with free online education, now up to more than 80 courses (nearly 20 also available in Spanish), unlimited access to AICC’s three technical advisors, virtual plant tours starting this fall, and all the other familiar benefits AICC offers to our members.

Generally, this is the space we use to tell you about an exciting event AICC hosted. Although we have hosted many great webinars, an Emerging Leader Virtual Field Trip, and copious COVID19 videoconferences, we are going to take this space to remind you of what is coming up.

November 20 was the first Converters Think Tank, a forum for AICC members to discuss their most pressing issues. These think tanks will be offered bimonthly.

One of AICC’s most popular programs through the years has been in-person tours of member plants, typically held in conjunction with a meeting or event.

Now, AICC members have opened their doors and invite you to join them for virtual walkthroughs of their facilities.

The tours have been recorded but will then be showcased during a live webinar-based event. Employees from the host plants will be available to answer

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

questions and to expand upon what has been presented in the videos.

AICC supplier members who are represented in the videos have also been invited to participate and contribute.

Registration for the live broadcasts is free for all AICC members.

There are dozens of webinars coming up, as well. They will cover everything from Boiler Room, Boilers, and Steam Systems to Aligning Customer Service With Corporate Goals. There is something for everyone.

Learn more about how the All Access Pass can save your training dollars on page 26.

We have several successful hybrid events under our belts now, and more are coming.

If you’re not familiar or haven’t attended any, know that hybrid courses may include pre-work, homework, workbooks, group work, and activities. The live portions of the courses take place over multiple days, with industry presenters. After courses are completed, there are follow-up activities, such as group forums or coaching.

January will bring two hybrid events: Corrugated Printing (January 12–14) and Digital Applications in Printing (January

19–21). Then, in February, members can improve their leadership skills during The Leadership Mirror.

There are very positive signs that we believe will allow us to begin meeting again in person. AICC is also planning an in-person Spring Meeting in 2021— Monday, April 26, through Wednesday, April 28—in Amelia Island, Florida.

AICC is working with the Omni Resort to ensure a safe environment; some of the precautions will include increased sanitation, use of face masks, social distancing, maximization of outdoor space, and reduced touch points. Furthermore, AICC will continue to monitor developments related to COVID-19 and safety as we have throughout the pandemic.

Understanding that our corrugated and paperboard packaging industries are social by nature, we are eager to bring back business as usual—with safeguards—as soon as possible.

Until then, look for more information about all of the engaging, invaluable training available to AICC members at www.aiccbox.org.

Ask Ralph

Bibliography Update: Fourth Edition

BY RALPH YOUNG

E

very few years, we would compile in BoxScore a review of the technical articles since the last update, which in this case was in July 2017. We are now attempting to do these summaries more often. These five offerings a year, which exclude the Big Associates Issue at the beginning of the year, are only part of the wider knowledge we extend to you through webinars, seminars, Ask Ralph access, the website search engine, phone calls, and personal emails. This service for you is only as good as the network of AICC that sustains the resources to this day. We also have access to books and research papers that are no longer available, as well as access to other trade associations.

The other previous three bibliographies are available along with the mentioned articles, so just ask. Here are the articles from the last three years: • On Regulations: This submission began to address the regulations that affect our industry and the operating environments. Subjects included forest certification, plant safety, food regulations, consumer safety, Canadian issues, trade associations, plant regulations, and vendor certifications. From small beginnings, we went on to publish an 11-page white paper on regulations, which can be accessed through the AICC website.

• Foreign Ownership of Domestic Containerboard: Those countries are China, Ireland, England, Australia, Mexico, and Canada.

• Combining Really Low Basis Weight Boards: A few observations on the 18–31# linerboard and how to evaluate their combined board strengths.

• Flute vs. Paperboard: The cover story in the May/June 2018 issue of BoxScore.

• • Expected Values for Containerboards Updated: We added some

14

BOXSCORE November/December 2020

•

•

•

•

•

•

properties and discussion around 18–23# linerboards.

Paperboard, Boxboard, Containerboard, and Paper: A look at capacities and end-use market, as well as the shifts occurring from solid-fiber paperboard packaging to small-flute corrugated.

Substrates: An article by guest writer Serge Desgagnés, general manager, sales and customer service, at Kruger Inc., in which he discusses what substrates are, paperboard, growth, alternative fiber disruptions, and state of the art in linerboard today.

Updating Educational Resources: A look into moving formerly printed brochures and materials into electronic editions.

Boxboard Primer: An overview of the other side of the fiber-based packaging business in North America. It is only one-quarter of the corrugated and containerboard market, with production by very few companies.

There are four main grades of boxboard: solid bleached sulfate, coated unbleached kraft, coated recycled board, and uncoated recycled board.

Education: A reminder of what we share in meetings, webinars, seminars, summits, and attendance at technical committees where we represent you as members and associates. We also included an economic review that is now presented almost daily by the National Association of Manufacturers’ newsletter that is forwarded to you. Dick and Greg Storat continue to publish Scoring Boxes.

The European Invasion: This was a vignette on the arrival of DS Smith into the United States and their style of marketing. Also included were glimpses of their perspectives on e-commerce, optimizing

•

•

•

•

packaging design, and refibering in North America.

Corrugated Business During the Disruption: We discussed the uneven levels of business activities, shifting end-use markets, e-commerce, virus updates, shifting eating habits, and challenges to the folding carton and rigid box segments. Also included were major uncertainties in OCC collection, prices, landfilling, and exports, a mill’s shift to URB, e-learning, reshoring, and employment.

Summer Reading List: An overview of new research white papers stored on the AICC website, with considerations to the dynamic nature of containerboard properties.

Looking Beyond COVID-19: Views of working at home, e-commerce, bankruptcies, challenges to the folding carton and rigid box industry, and their impact on paperboard capacities.

The Times They Are a-Changin’: UN hazmat packaging may be changing now to include ECT and not just the linerboard basis weights and Cobb.

Item 222 has consolidated multiple tariffs. Independents continue to lead in digital printing, owning about 64% of that segment. Have you investigated the new domestically produced 16# liners? There’s a new e-learning module coming on Auditing Your Corrugator for Maximizing Combined Board Strength.

Ralph Young is the principal of Alternative Paper Solutions and is AICC’s technical advisor.

Contact Ralph directly about technical issues that impact our industry at askralph@aiccbox.org.

Planning for the future is one of your most important jobs. Selling your business, succession planning, equipment decisions and expansions require the best advice and strategy. We’ve been providing Business Planning Services to the independent converter for over 30 years. Need to make a big decision? Call us now.

STILL the Industry Experts 580 Sylvan Avenue, Suite M-A Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (201) 731-3025 • Fax: (201) 731-3026 info@klinghernadler.com

Ask Tom

Identifying New Suppliers in the Post-COVID-19 Era

BY TOM WEBER

W

hen most buyers plan on identifying a new supplier, they are usually tempted to focus on the best price. However, concentrating only on low costs can hurt you in the long term. That’s because shaving a few cents off the price of a product is no help if the quality is below standard and the component or material does not arrive when you need it.

So instead of focusing solely on cost, focus on quality by incorporating the following tips into your sourcing strategy.

1. Check Certifications Many buyers have minimal requirements when it comes to supplier quality certifications. However, suppliers do not always make it easy to view and verify their certifications. Discover suppliers that are certified to your quality standards, including ISO, QS, and more.

2. Evaluate the Geopolitical Climate While some overseas resources can provide rock-bottom prices, tenuous labor relations or political upheaval can leave you without your required product.

Take the time to thoroughly analyze the potential for unrest in the areas you will potentially rely on for the success of your supply chain.

3. Gauge Financial Stability According to an informal ThomasNet survey, nearly half of all buyers have worked with a supplier that unexpectedly went out of business. Don’t be caught off guard.

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

4. Assess Weather and Pandemic Risks We have all seen hurricanes, tornados, snow, rain, and drought impact communities across the world.

However, the news rarely covers the impact these events have on the supply chain. You do not have the luxury of overlooking this. As you select potential suppliers, identify the weather-related events that are typical to the region and evaluate how they could dictate your ability to maintain business as usual. You must now review your future supply chain addition regarding their ability to weather a pandemic storm as well.

5. Align Locations to Your Needs Depending on your manufacturing requirements, you should determine your need for a multilocation supplier or a single warehouse. Obviously, shipping capabilities and associated costs will differ by the number of locations a supplier has to offer. You may be able to negotiate a better price from a smaller business with a single location or string multiple suppliers together to meet your needs.

6. Carefully Review Product Information Detailed product descriptions and related info will help you determine whether a potential supplier has the right products for your application. If a supplier has taken the time to provide easily accessible product specs, charts, graphics, and CAD drawings, it shows that they value your time and are willing to be as helpful as possible to win and maintain your ongoing business.

7. Ask for Accessible Inventory Information Having visibility into your supplier’s inventory can be advantageous. It is an indication of their commitment to you as a customer and their ability to provide what you need, when you need it.

8. Know Their Scalability Determine how flexible the supplier is when it comes to providing small-quantity and high-volume orders. If you are looking for smaller quantities or prototypes to start out, you will most likely find suppliers that focus on that volume. If you will grow to require extremely large shipments of the product over time, you could easily outgrow your original supplier selection. Knowing what the growth pattern is for the product you are sourcing before you select a supplier will allow you to partner with a supplier that can painlessly scale to meet your changing needs.

9. Check Their Commitment to Outstanding Customer Service Expect the best and plan for the worst.

Evaluate the customer service provided by each potential supplier. If you are working in a 24-hour lights-out manufacturing capacity that could require a call to a supplier at any time of day or night, work this into your research. A deeper understanding of the contract language pertaining to their return policy should be uncovered as well. You do not want to be stuck holding the bag.

Ask Tom

10. Get Lead Time and Delivery Statistics Delivery performance is a key tenet to industrial buyers. Ask for their lead-time projections compared against on-time delivery rates. If these cannot be provided, then it is a sign that they are not being tracked or are not very good. Either reason is cause for concern.

11. Read Into the Payment Terms Identify the suppliers that are willing to work with your payment requirements. Because long-term need and

delivery timelines can dictate PO or net-30 billing options, don’t be afraid to ask for what you need to run your business appropriately.

12. Contact References As always, a vote of approval from another business that the supplier is working with can speak volumes about their true abilities. While nondisclosure agreements can cause some difficulties in this area, a supplier should always have a ready list of happy customers or

testimonials—even better if they have those testimonials on their website.

While this is not an exhaustive list of parameters you should review before onboarding a new supplier, it will help identify those you can rely on.

Tom Weber is president of WeberSource LLC and is AICC’s folding carton and rigid box technical advisor.

Contact Tom directly at asktom@aiccbox.org.

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Selling Today

Tips for Hosting Web Meetings, Webinars, and Virtual Tours

BY TODD M. ZIELINSKI AND LISA BENSON

B

ack in early March, you might not have imagined that you’d be thrust into a new way of doing business.

Some traditional sales and marketing activities, such as trade shows and networking events, will take some time to return, and although other activities may be happening, such as conducting face-to-face meetings, many companies are still restricting visitors, depending on where they are located. Love it or hate it, online technology in the form of videoconferencing, video tours, and webinars is necessary to interact successfully with your prospects and customers and will likely be around for some time.

Knowing how to use online technology effectively is no longer a nice-to-have skill but a requirement for doing business.

Fumbling with settings or struggling to set up when you start a virtual meeting or tour puts you at risk for coming across as unprofessional and unorganized, which could impact the trust that prospects or customers have in your ability to deliver.

Testing your technology before you need to use it is vital for making sure you can hit the ground running.

Even if you are already using online technology, some of these tips might help polish your skills even more. Below we provide tips specific to web meetings, webinars, and virtual tours, as well as more general tips for success.

Web Meetings A phone call may be sufficient for some types of communication, but seeing your prospect on video during a virtual meeting allows you to create a stronger connection.

On video calls, you have visual cues that are missing on traditional calls. These

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

cues can help you to alter your message to ensure that it is resonating with your prospect. Web meetings are also more productive than a traditional conference call, as participants are more likely to remain focused. Additionally, web meetings allow you to share your screen to show a presentation or other information.

Just as in a traditional meeting, the same etiquette applies. Prepare an agenda.

If you are hosting, arrive a few minutes early. If you are attending, arrive on time.

Hosts should provide a dial-in number in case there are issues with participants having a stable internet connection.

introduction to the topic, learning objectives, date and time, and the presenter’s name. When someone signs up, they should receive an email with directions on how to sign on. If you can’t create a page on your website, many marketing automation platforms allow you to create landing pages and can automatically send email responses. Remember to send a reminder email on the day of the webinar.

Recording your webinar allows you to promote it later as an on-demand presentation and get additional marketing use from it. You can also send it to those who signed up but were not able to attend.

Webinars Webinars are a great way to reach many prospects and customers and build relationships. For best results, topics should be geared toward where people are in the sales process. If you are looking to engage new customers, keep your topics educational.

Current customers might be interested in new technology or services. When designing your presentation, remember to create it from the perspective of your audience. If your presentation is peppered with “we” more than “you,” you may need to verify that you are providing information that will resonate with your audience.

Remember the adage “What’s in it for me?”

Practice your webinar before you go live. Practice will allow you to work out any technical challenges, smooth out your presentation, and ensure that you can keep to the time allotted.

Use email and social media to promote your webinar. Create a page on your website with a form and a call to action.

The page should also include a brief

Virtual Tours Virtual tours of your facility are a great way to show off your capabilities to those that are social distancing or that aren’t able to travel. Even though virtual tours became necessary during the recent pandemic, they could remain popular because of the cost-savings.

Practice run-throughs for virtual tours are essential. You don’t need expensive equipment. You can use your cellphone to conduct the tour, but consider using a gimbal stabilizer to keep the image steady while you are walking. If you are talking during the tour, a headset or external microphone will ensure that you can be heard over background noise. Be aware of the direction you are holding your camera; showing the ceiling or floor when not intentional can become frustrating for viewers.

Additional Tips for Success Here are some additional tips that will ensure that your web meetings, webinars, and facility tours are successful and that

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Selling Today

you showcase all aspects of your facility and capabilities.

Choosing a platform. There are many platforms to choose from when conducting virtual meetings—Zoom, Webex, GoToWebinar, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and others. If your company doesn’t require a specific platform, you may need to do some research to find the one that best fits your needs. If you are hosting a webinar, for example, make sure it can support the number of attendees you expect. Some platforms may require attendees to create an account, which they may not want to do.

Before live use. Get to know the platform before you host a meeting, webinar, or tour. Some settings you might find helpful for security are preventing meeting link sharing, creating a waiting room before the meeting or webinar starts, and locking the meeting once it begins.

Many platforms allow you to automatically mute participants, so their background noises don’t create distractions. You can unmute as necessary during the meeting or presentation. If you are sharing content, ensure that you know how to do it so that the transition is smooth. Suggest to your attendees that they download any software required before the meeting or webinar.

Neutral background. Be aware of what is around you and is visible on the screen. It is best to have a blank wall behind you for meetings or webinars, but

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if that isn’t possible, make sure it looks as professional as possible. Open closets and busy backgrounds may have people focusing on what is around you and not what you are saying. Many platforms have virtual backgrounds or the ability to blur your background. If you must use one, choose something neutral to avoid distracting participants. For virtual tours, make sure workspaces are tidy. Record a practice tour, and watch it to make sure you are giving the impression you want.

Avoid distractions. Background noise can become annoying to participants.

Some platforms have an option to block out background noise. Mute yourself when someone else is speaking. Remember to turn off notifications and turn on “do not disturb” or shut down your email to avoid notifications popping up or beeping during your meeting, webinar, or tour.

Lighting. Proper lighting is essential and often overlooked. For meetings, if possible, position yourself facing a window to take advantage of natural light.

Bright light coming from behind you may create glare; reposition yourself or close shades if necessary. Consider purchasing a portable makeup light or ring light to place behind your camera to brighten your face. Virtual plant tours will be more successful if participants can see your facility without struggling. Again, pay attention to any windows that might

create glare or any dark areas that need additional lighting during the tour.

Audio. Check your audio to make sure it is clear, especially if you will be speaking during a tour. Some areas of your facility may be noisier or have dead areas where audio could break up. You may find that an external microphone or headphones with a built-in microphone have a better sound.

Camera. For meetings or if you will be on camera during a webinar, position your webcam slightly above eye level. If you are looking down at your screen, you are forcing viewers to look up your nose. If using a laptop, you might need to elevate it much higher than is comfortable for typing, which will require an external keyboard if you will need it during the meeting or webinar. When you are speaking, look at your camera and not at your screen. This takes practice, as it is human nature to look at the person to whom you are speaking. If you use multiple monitors, placing an external camera above your primary monitor can help.

Getting Started If you aren’t technologically savvy, it can be overwhelming to engage with these technologies. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help with getting yourself set up.

Once you get started, you will wonder how you managed before.

Todd M. Zielinski is managing director and CEO at Athena SWC LLC. He can be reached at 716-250-5547 or tzielinski@athenaswc.com.

Lisa Benson is senior marketing content consultant at Athena SWC LLC. She can be reached at lbenson@athenaswc.com.

Andragogy

Starting Is the Hardest Part

BY JULIE RICE SUGGS, PH.D., AND ALLI KEIGLEY

“

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Y

ou don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

This quote by the popular motivational speaker Zig Ziglar popped up on my screen—I’m a sucker for cliché quotes at 9 a.m. on Mondays—and it made me chuckle.

It’s funny to me because this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this quote—not by a long shot. Every coach, teacher, and mentor I’ve ever had said it to me—or at least a very similar version of it—at some point in our relationship. And it had been plastered on all of my K–12 classrooms—the quintessential poster gracing the walls.

Overuse aside, the quote got me thinking about just how hard it is to start, well, anything. During our school years, it might be that 3,000-word research paper, putting pen to that blank page just waiting to become a masterpiece. Or what about starting that new sport? With so many new skills to master, it can feel overwhelming to even begin.

For a full-time working professional— like many of you—starting new things can be even more challenging. Ready to start that new workout program?

Or that drawing class you’ve always wanted to take? Sure, it sounds amazing, but where’s the time? And what about continuing education? Many of you are juggling 40-plus-hour workloads, after-school activities, cooking, cleaning, and the list goes on and on. It already feels like there’s just not enough time in the day.

OK, we know the obstacles, but we also know that continuing education is an excellent way to advance our careers and better our knowledge, which in

BOXSCORE November/December 2020

turn betters our whole selves.

So, how do we make it happen?

Fortunately, AICC is here to help.

AICC’s partnership with The Packaging School allows for member companies and all respective employees to enjoy the value-add of training programs for free. And with more than 80 online courses in both English and Spanish, all related to the packaging industry and the manufacturing environment, you’re sure to find something that suits your current needs. Among the courses is the Certificate of Packaging Science (CPS), a 12-course online curriculum that teaches the materials, processes, and influences shaping the advancement of the packaging industry. After completing all 12 CPS courses, AICC members are eligible for the CPS final exam coordinated through The Packaging School—the resulting credential is registered, and framed certificates are sent to each earning graduate. This e-learning program provides relevant and comprehensive education on the global role of packaging in business and society.

No matter the obstacles, take that first step toward gaining knowledge.

Even if it’s a tiny step. Be a lifelong learner. Never stop. The benefits are numerous—an enhanced understanding of the world, opened doors to new opportunities, improved quality of life—and more online programs are making this transition easier for the busy professional.

Our online courses use a technique called microlearning, in which difficult topics are broken up and arranged into bite-sized lessons the

learner can engage with on any device. Lessons take the form of infographics, quick readings, videos, animations, discussions, and interactive slides. This unique delivery method empowers you to complete courses on your schedule at your own pace. Short, focused sessions can help avoid mental burnout and cater to adult learning styles—all paving the way for successful integration back into the world of learning.

In this year alone, AICC has had 20 companies become new members and take the plunge to start something new. Robert Weidhaas, president of My Press Needs LLC, says his company is committed to R&D and education, and he believes that by joining AICC, they can expand both of these efforts.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” (There’s another motivational poster from some wall, somewhere.) These companies were willing to take that critical first step.

Are you?

Julie Rice Suggs, Ph.D., is academic director at The Packaging School.

She can be reached at 330-774-8542 or julie@packagingschool.com.

Alli Keigley, who assisted with writing this article, is production coordinator at The Packaging School.

She can be reached at alli@packagingschool.com.

Leadership

Overcoming Poor Judgment

B

roadcaster Mike Krukow has called so many close San Francisco Giants games in recent years that he has subtitled the team’s play, “Giants baseball—torture.” He meant: We’re winning, but why does it have to hurt?

Well, it may be time to subtitle 2020 as well. One consequence of these tumultuous times is a nexus of untrained workers, welcome large backlogs, and shrinking lead times. The potential impacts on quality and on-time delivery are short-term consequences. The willing but incapable workers are worthy of a long-term investment in the development of the critical-thinking skills that will serve your company and their careers. If ever there was a time when life experience equipped most workers with judgment, this is not that time.

Poor judgment is incredibly wasteful.

It is time to declare war on waste and to equip everyone in the building to recognize and remove loss of time, money, effort, and creativity. Waste is defined in the eyes of your customer. It includes many good things—and many necessary things—that you need to do.

Your customer would not want to do business with you if they knew that you did not allow people to take breaks or lunches, that you didn’t train your people, or that you never took time to maintain your machines. They want you to do all of that, but they don’t want to pay for it.

Your customer sees value as anything that improves the form or function of a product or service; they see everything else as waste.

The authors of The Machine That Changed the World defined waste as “anything your customer would not gladly pay for if you were to bill them for it separately.” The point is that we need to do many of these

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PRIORITIZATION

Setup Improvement Ideas

EASY TO DO

HARD TO DO

Have tooling checked and delivered to machine

Go paperless with manufacturing specifications

Gather measurement data for sheet supplier

Replace/update glue system

Implement

Consider

Move product ourselves with pallet jack

Better management software for bar coding & scheduling

Cross-train on all key roles

Stage materials in marked locations

Purchase dunnage

Possible

Kill

Add micrometers at both ends of machine to save steps

valuable things, but we need to do them in such a way that we minimize their impact on the flow of product and service.

Recognizing and removing waste is a learned skill. In most cases judgment can be learned through guided experience with tools. The TIMWOOD chart on the next page is one such tool for seeing waste that is hidden in plain sight. It is very difficult for most of us to spot waste in the areas where we live and work.

When safety, quality, or speed issues point out a need for improvement, this tool may be used as an observation guide.

We are looking for causes of waste, not for someone to blame the waste upon, so it is best treated as a search. In this case, we are not looking for Waldo, but for TIM

WOOD, an acronym for seven categories of waste. Once you have gone through the exercise, it will be easy to remember what each of the letters represents. Then you will be able to remind team members in the normal course of their workday to be on the lookout for waste.

When your team is guided through disciplined observation, they find waste related to: • Transportation to and from the process.

• Inventory imbalances in raw materials, WIP, or finished goods.

• Movement within the process that may be unnecessary.

• Waiting for materials, tooling, or information.

Images courtesy of Working Well.

BY SCOTT ELLIS, ED.D.

Leadership

• Overproduction by making more than is currently needed right now.

• Overprocessing by adding excessive steps or materials.

• Defects and rework.

Prioritization Chart This is another helpful tool that shows a group what actions should be taken next. By discussing the level of payoff and the level of difficulty, the group decides what items have a high enough priority and become action items. This is a remarkable process to watch. Inevitably, groups begin in an us-them mode. What I mean by this is that we begin with a silly mindset that looks for simple solutions that are made doubly simple by the use of other people’s resources.

For example, each time a machine crew is asked what would be needed to go faster, the answer will include “buy us a new machine.” However, when that solution is considered and then placed on the prioritization chart, it is most often the person who suggested it who says it belongs on the top right quadrant (high

payoff, hard to do). What happened in the interim is that the person was invited into the decision process and then adopted an owner’s perspective. Once the prioritization is complete, an action item list can be populated.

One blessing of troubled times is the creation of so many teachable moments.

Repeated use of tools such as those described here provides a model for observation and decision-making that improves the work and the judgment of the worker. Who knows, it may even improve our communities.

Scott Ellis, Ed.D., delivers training, coaching, and resources that develop the ability to eliminate obstacles and sustain more effective and profitable results. He recently published Dammit, Learning Judgment Through Experience. His books are available on Amazon. Scott can be reached at 425-985-8508 or scott@workingwell.bz.

TIMWOOD BUY-IN BUILDER Have everyone write their observations on sticky notes. As each person places their ideas on the TIMWOOD board, some will be nervous about standing up there talking about their observation, but they will be proud they did.

Step by step: 1. Go to the area; being there is different than speaking from memory.

2. Working alone or in pairs; look for examples of each type of waste.

3. List the observations, along with the category of waste.

4. When you return to the war room, put the observations on the TIMWOOD board.

5. Have each person explain the waste they observed.

WHERE’S THE WASTE?

T

TRANSPORTATION

to/from machine with forklift inefficient staging of materials

I

INVENTORY

M W O O D MOTION

WAITING

dunnage on wrong pallet storage of tooling

OVERPRODUCTION

OVERPROCESSING

70% only

DEFECTS

whole pallet w/o adhesive

had to go get micrometer (there is only 1)

stopped to clean glue head

special instructions!

waste product sent to next machine

not using fingers

too many quality checks

warped raw material

duplication on specifications

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

25

INNOVATION Virtual Training

All AICC Webinars With the All Access Pass

A

ICC members can get more than 50 webinars for one price with the All Access Pass. It provides the best way to meet a company’s professional development needs.

When a company invests in professional development, they equip their team with shared knowledge that helps them perform at a high level and improve the company’s bottom line. All employees can use the All Access Pass to register for webinars important to their development without delay or additional payments.

The All Access Pass gives participating companies: • flexibility in choosing education offerings and which team members take them; • simplicity and accuracy in budgeting for professional development; • the best available price for AICC webinars; and • an easy way to leverage the value of your AICC membership.

AICC members will lower training costs and streamline payments with the All Access Pass. For one payment

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

of $1,695, participating companies are given a code that all employees can use to register for every webinar scheduled through August 2021. Multiple people can attend the same webinar or watch the recordings, which are sent to all pass holders.

The average registration for a webinar is $250. With more than 50 webinars scheduled, the All Access Pass represents a savings of more than $10,000. The All Access Pass pays for itself after only a few webinars.

Webinars and recordings include:

• ADA News You Can Use: Trends, Tips, & Updates Webinar • Maintenance Budget Metrics • Rotary Die Cutting Operations • Driving Organic Growth • Rightweighting vs. Board Combinations • Understanding Our Capabilities to Meet Customer Expectations To purchase the All Access Pass, visit www.aiccbox.org/pass, or contact Taryn Pyle, AICC’s director of education and leadership development, at 703-535-1391 or tpyle@aiccbox.org.

AICC Innovation

Marketing Strategy

Marketing’s ‘New Norm’ and the Corrugated Industry

BY REBECCA RENDON

C

OVID-19 continues to plague us with uncertainty, but there is one thing that is certain: Marketing has been changed for the foreseeable future— and potentially forever. Now, more than ever, a strong marketing strategy is essential.

Marketing in every sector has been affected. The American Marketing Association (AMA) reports that 9% of marketing jobs have been lost, with some companies eliminating entire marketing departments. This trend is expected to continue into 2021, with planned marketing hiring dropping to –3.5%, an all-time low and going negative for its first time. Reducing marketing teams and budgets could prove fatal for some companies, while the companies that are investing in the right kind of marketing will maintain momentum and push through on stretched resources.

B2B marketing professionals, along with B2C, are faced with budget and personnel cuts and have needed to pivot and adjust to the “new norm,” essentially, overnight. B2B companies are faced with their own set of challenges, as B2Bs typically have a longer sales cycle and are more relationship-based.

How do companies still achieve consistent sales and maintain a backlog of potential customers through reduced touch points and an interruption in the sales cycle? The answer is intentional marketing. I don’t mean investing in PPC campaigns or refining your search

terms. I’m talking about growing relationships—virtually.

A recent survey of B2B businesses, conducted by McKinsey & Co., found that digital interactions are now two to three times more important to customers than traditional sales interactions.

Within the corrugated industry, which has historically been a laggard in digital marketing, some suppliers have proven their agility and innovation by providing their customers with digital interactions and touch points, while others are falling behind.

Adam Bland, president of Quantum Ink, says, “Although the corrugated industry seems to be more ancestral than others, which presents its own set of challenges, the size of the industry and the close relationships make it easier to make an impact.”

When executed properly through the use of digital and social channels, and by leveraging trusted relationships, successful marketing can be achieved on a lean budget. According to the AMA, 62% of marketers report that marketing has become more important during COVID19, with their focus shifting to creating digital tools and interfaces to connect with customers virtually.

Here are a few ways to improve your marketing strategy, making it more relationship-centric: 1. Focus on relationship-building.

Sometimes in our industry, it could take years to cultivate fruitful

relationships. In order to deepen relationships with customers, B2B companies should focus on offering solutions to customers, while being consultative, when building and earning the customer’s trust. This might not bring in much revenue right away, but it will ultimately aid companies in maintaining and restoring relationships, which will be beneficial once budgets return to normal, according to Forrester Research.

Another example of this is hosting webinars or free trainings for your customers. This is a low-cost opportunity to solve a problem for your customer or educate them on new technologies, through which you’re deepening the relationships with your prospective customers.

“Casting a wide net and nurturing those relationships is essential for effective marketing, because marketing doesn’t get you the sale.

Marketing gets you the meeting,” Bland says.

2. Utilize all of the free press you can get. Industry magazines or news sites are always seeking content. Don’t be afraid to connect with editors and send them press releases about new hires, machine installations, new products, customer highlights, etc. Use this as a tool to share with potential customers how you’re solving problems for people in the industry. This is an easy, free way to

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

27

AICC Innovation

spread news within your industry and with your customers. You can share the new postings on your company LinkedIn page or feature editorial pieces on your website.

3. Create digital content. Digital content that can be promoted and shared across social platforms is key to spreading a company’s message to a broad range of industry professionals. This includes podcasts, webinars, customer highlight videos and testimonials, blog posts, and more. The key to the success of digital content is sharing it with your prospects and making sure the right people see it. Share this content through e-newsletters to subscribers, have your sales team share it on LinkedIn, or use your website as a hub for all of your content.

The industry has shown significant innovation and growth in this area, with the launch of ConneXion Community, an industry-specific app launched by Brunton Business Publications that acts as a hub for all things corrugated. It features digital content from its partners, a LinkedIn-style news feed, and an exclusive library of podcasts and webinar series. Using a platform such as this expands your company’s reach and allows you to connect with your customers in a casual, streamlined way.

4. Digitize events. With the cancellation of all major trade shows this year, everyone is eager to get back to pre-COVID life, when we can all meet up in a warm destination for the AICC Spring Meeting or gather together—not socially distanced— at networking cocktail events at CorrExpo in the fall.

The reality is that we don’t know what the future holds for trade shows. However, major suppliers

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such as Bobst and Xerox recently announced they are pulling out of the 2021 drupa show, scheduled for April. Bobst also confirmed in May that they would no longer be exhibiting at most trade shows, rather opting to participate in virtual events and “experience” centers.

The cost of attending SuperCorr can be hundreds of thousands of dollars when you combine the costs of booth rental, travel, freight, electricity, etc. Carpeting alone can be up to $50,000. This makes it difficult to justify the expense. Digital events will often yield higher attendance and a broader reach, as well.

The ConneXion virtual trade show launched November 2, and it will be the first of its kind for the industry. This monthlong virtual trade show is free and open to anyone in the global corrugated industry. Attendees will (virtually) walk through the expo halls, visit suppliers’ virtual booths, exchange virtual business cards, view livestreamed demonstrations, attend webinar lectures, and more. Some of the ConneXion partners exhibiting at the event will be HP, Bobst, Fosber, Esko, JB Machinery, EFI, Kiwiplan, MHI, SUN Automation Group, and other leading suppliers from around the world.

5. Join an industry association. “By joining an association like AICC, you gain credibility in the market because you immediately become part of an exclusive network of suppliers and converters,” says Bland.

“We have access to customers that we might not have had before. This access to members has resulted in nearly 15%–20% of our business coming from AICC members.”

Along with expanding your company’s reach and connecting with a network of industry professionals,

AICC and other industry associations offer free training courses and programs such as The Packaging School, or webinars for specific roles, virtual selling, hot topics, and more.

6. Hire a consultant. Bringing in an outside consultant with an enlightened vision and fresh view of the situation can result in new ideas and a streamlined strategy. A consultant who knows your industry, its processes, and its needs is even more beneficial, as they will have better insight into your customer base, tactics that work, and competitive threats in the industry.

Has your consultant suggested a customer feedback survey? Does your customer care mostly about price, quality, sustainability, service, or support? This type of data is important in deciding how to go to market with certain products or services or when shifting sales tactics.

Customers value the fact that your company is reaching out to them for their feedback and taking the initiative to find more effective ways to serve them, further strengthening the trust and raising the value of the relationship.

Implementing some of these strategies in your company’s marketing plan will allow you to capitalize on the relationship-building skills that our industry has proven for years, while strengthening those ties and providing more value to customers.

Rebecca Rendon is editor and marketing manager for Brunton Business Publications and is a marketing consultant specializing in the corrugated industry. She can be reached at 317-612-1820 or rebecca@rjrmarketingconsulting.com.

Member Profile

Jet Container: Attitude Determines Altitude

BY STEVE YOUNG

COMPANY: Jet Container Co. ESTABLISHED: 1977 JOINED AICC: 2000 PHONE: 614-444-2133 Photos courtesy of Jet Container.

WEBSITE: www.jetcontainer.com LOCATIONS: Columbus, Ohio CO-OWNERS: Mike Schmitt, Steve Schmitt, Richard Prohl Jet’s management team, from left: Dawn O’Keefe, accounting manager; Rich Prohl, technical sales representative; Steve Schmitt, president; Paul Leach, plant manager; and Julie Cooper, customer service manager. (Not pictured: Rocco Giovannucci, sales manager.)

J

oe Schmitt founded Jet Container Co. in September 1977 after a career at Corco and Consolidated Packaging. A consummate entrepreneur, Schmitt and a partner had owned and operated a Sunoco gas station, even while they were still students at the University of Toledo. It was that venture that fueled his eventual transition to the corrugated box business and to starting his own company in Columbus, Ohio.

A father of four sons, the elder Schmitt had high hopes his sons would also feel the tug of entrepreneurship and the family business. The first to bite was Mike, who in 1987 joined Jet as a sales representative. “I graduated from college in 1987, but dad wanted me to get experience elsewhere before coming into the company,” Mike says. “But it was hard to

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get a job back then, and when I did finally get an interview with Owens-Illinois in Circleville, Ohio, I didn’t get the job because they knew my father was in the business, and they figured I’d up and leave them after a couple years and go to work for him. So I went straight to work selling for Jet.” Mike’s younger brother Steve, now president of the company, wanted to spend his career flying commercial jets.

“I had my sights set on being an airline pilot,” he says. “I enrolled in the Ohio State University flight-training program after obtaining a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University, with the hopes of getting an opportunity at Executive Jet [now NetJets], a Columbus-based corporate jet-leasing service. I was looking to get a right-seat [first officer] position and then

work my way up from there, eventually getting into the commercial airlines.”

Steve’s aspirations, like his brother Mike’s, were grounded by the sluggish economic years in the late 1980s and early ’90s, as major commercial carriers began furloughing their tenured pilots and flight crews.

It was at that point that Steve joined his brother working in their father’s business, also starting as a sales representative. “I hated selling,” he says. “I wasn’t very good at it, and I was always looking up into the sky at planes.”

He credits his later change in attitude and aptitude to an AICC sales training program—the real-world selling course— held one year in Indianapolis. “The two guys teaching it didn’t take any bull from anyone,” he says, referring to industry

Member Profile

sales veterans John Gockley and Dick Troll, the authors of the program. “One of my role-playing presentations was so bad that Gockley told me that maybe I should go back to flight school.”

Gockley’s rebuke was a motivator, and in spite of his initial poor performance, Steve says, he eventually mastered the principles that make salespeople successful: disciplined time management, careful qualification of prospects, effective sales presentations, handling customer objections, and most importantly, asking for the order.

Mike and Steve took second-generation ownership of the company in 2001, with their other two brothers, Mark and J.T., joining a year or so later, and since then, Jet Container has embarked on a steady path of growth. In 2017, the company moved from a century-old multilevel building south of downtown Columbus to a 225,000-square-foot facility closer to transportation arteries on the east side of the city. In conversations with Steve, Mike, and their key management team, BoxScore learned the principal reasons for the company’s success, especially in such turbulent times: a family culture, a team spirit, and integrity in action.

Operating Philosophy: Run, Improve, Grow As reluctant as Steve was in his early years in the industry, he has presided over the continued growth of Jet Container. The company produces more than 250 million square feet a year and employs 51 people.

The Columbus metropolitan area, home to more than 2 million people, is a manufacturing and, increasingly, a national distribution hub, with a large retail distribution presence and e-commerce businesses. The city’s economic influence

“Are you always ‘running’ the business? If so, you do not have time to improve. And if you can’t improve, you won’t grow.”

—Steve Schmitt in the Midwest is reflected by the growth of Jet’s immediate market area, which Sales Director Rocco Giovannucci says has expanded beyond central and southern Ohio to the entire state. Half the company’s sales are industrial packaging typical of independent boxmakers serving the Buckeye State’s manufacturing base.

“I would say 50% of our business is to small and midsized manufacturers—parts suppliers, siding companies, machine tool businesses,” Giovannucci says, adding that the retail and e-commerce platforms whose distribution centers ring the city are a growing opportunity.

Food and beverage companies are also a good market for Jet, and Giovannucci says the company’s sights are on this market as well. “Food and beverage are good levelers for the cyclical ups and downs of our business,” he says, “especially in light of the industry’s experience with the [COVID-19] pandemic.”

“We have a solid core of customers in our market,” Mike says, many of whom he’s been selling for 33 years. “The market demands have changed over the years,” he adds, saying that in his early years of selling, fast turnaround was what kept customers coming back. “It was all about speed to get boxes to the customer in those days. And while that is still important, there’s now more competition, and

that’s a factor driving our improvement in efficiencies and cost reduction.”

Steve sought outside counsel as the company relocated to its existing location four years ago. “We wanted help to improve our processes and efficiencies, and we brought in Mike Jarvis of Definity Partners.”

Through the affiliation with Jarvis, Schmitt was introduced to Ray Attiyah’s book, Run Improve Grow, described on its cover as a “road map from firefighting to bold business growth.” As Steve explains, the book was required reading for all his management team. “The book asks us, ‘Where do you [the leadership team] spend your time?’ Are you always ‘running’ the business? If so, you do not have time to improve. And if you can’t improve, you can’t grow.’ ” Steve says that as a business owner, he faced the ongoing challenge of getting out of the “run” mode. “It’s the default position for any entrepreneur,” he says.

“We’re always rushing in to fix things, when our focus should be on improving the process so we can grow.”

Production: Successes, Challenges, Opportunities Paul Leach, plant manager, has been with Jet for 17 years. By some standards, he’s a rookie, as on the same day of our visit we met veterans Donny Long and

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Photos courtesy of Jet Container.

Member Profile

Jet's All-American Crew. Back row, from left: Mark Marcum, maintenance manager; Steve Schmitt, president; Mike Schmitt, vice president, new business development; Richard Prohl, vice president, technical sales rep, lead designer; Chuck Reichert, warehouse manager (37-year tenure); Donald Long, prepress tooling manager (43-year tenure). Front row, from left: Sam Long, quality and food safety manager (41-year tenure); Paul Leach, plant manager; Matt Van Fossen, production manager; and Eric Carlsen, shipping and logistics manager.

Chuck Reichert, with 42 and 37 years at the company, respectively. And this is the first clue to the company’s continuing success: a family culture in which loyalty is a prized attribute. “We have a family culture here,” Leach says. “Our most successful recruiting tool is the recommendation of a current employee.”

He adds that in the wake of the pandemic it’s been more difficult to recruit good workers.

What’s more, he says, the company has faced increasing employment competition in the city: “We also have to compete with Amazon and these other online distribution centers that have sprung up around Columbus.”

Leach believes the company culture engenders loyalty. “We work with everyone and their individual needs,” he says, “especially now in the pandemic, with childcare, various back-to-school situations, and the like.”

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Jet has, over the years, also perfected a three-tier incentive program based on six principal points: overall equipment effectiveness, attendance, safety, taking corrective actions, workplace cleanliness (or 5-S), and if in a supervisory role, leadership with their team. The tiers apply to the level of employee, whether operator, assistant operator, or helper.

“We’re proud of the incentive system we’ve created,” Steve says.

Commenting on the potential bonus each employee can earn, Leach adds, “We believe our job is to give our employees the best opportunity to succeed while they are here.”

Leach presides over seven machine centers on the manufacturing floor, consisting of three flexo folder gluers, two rotary die cutters, one flatbed die cutter, and a specialty folder gluer. Among the flexos, the McKinley 66x190 is the giant workhorse, supported by a four-color Latitude 50x1 10 and an S&S 38x80. The

two rotary die cutters are both Wards—a 66x80 one-color, which was the fifth Ward machine made, and a 66x125 twocolor. Completing the machine mix are a Baysek C170 flatbed die cutter and a J&L specialty gluer. Continuing investment in the equipment includes the recent installation of the Apex GTT anilox rolls on the Latitude four-color flexo. Leach says the Apex Z-pattern cell technology allows for more consistent ink coverage, especially as customers in e-commerce platforms look for vibrant graphics and inside printing. Jet’s primary ink supplier, BCM Inks, has also worked consistently with the company to support its improvement in graphics and productivity. In 2016, Jet installed a BCM ink-blending system, which Steve credits for a reduction in ink inventory and faster color production.

Design Innovation and Service Excellence Jet’s well-oiled production team is critical in light of changing market demands. “In the past five years we’ve seen the market shift to larger orders of 15,000, 20,000, or 40,000 square feet,” Steve says. “The market has gone that way, and we’ve followed because these days, you can’t generate enough contribution dollars to set up a flexo folder gluer and run a 500piece order. We are looking to invest in machinery with lower operating costs that will allow us to run smaller quantities without tying up a major machine center.”

Richard Prohl, who is part owner at Jet as well as the company’s technical sales representative and lead designer, weighs in on his role in the changing demands of the customer base. He’s been with the company 20 years, a span of time that has allowed him to gather enough data points to note the shift. “We’re seeing a great demand for two-sided printing, and that’s where our efficiency efforts are focused,” he says.

Prohl says that the addition of the Baysek C170 flatbed die cutter created opportunities for new designs and relieved a capacity crunch on the two

Member Profile

Schmitt with the two books by author Ray Atiyah that have driven Jet’s strategy, Run Improve Grow and Fearless Front Line.

Schmitt (left) and Paul Leach, Jet’s plant manager, with the Baysek C170 flatbed die cutter.

Ward rotary die cutters. “When we first installed the Baysek, I took every opportunity to move something to it,” he says. He credits the machine for allowing Jet to meet the demands of e-commerce companies, which are looking to “reduce package weight and dimensions. Their customers—consumers—are complaining about too much packaging.”

For Customer Service Manager Julie Cooper and her department of three, the push of the pandemic has quickened the pace of orders, scheduling, and service demands. Her principal challenge is like so many others in the manufacturing workplace today: finding good candidates to fill the customer service role. “It takes six months to get someone fully up to speed,” she says. “And it’s a demanding environment requiring a special kind of personality to deal with customers, sales, and production gracefully.”

Cooper says a big part of customer expectation today is that customers want to be able to log into a site and see the progress of their order. “We’re all used to having that option when we order something online, so it’s the same thing in our manufacturing environment,” she says.

Dawn O’Keefe, accounting manager, is the newest member of the Jet management team, joining less than a year ago. In a business and time when cash is king, her focus has been on marshalling the company’s receivables. “We had customers

call and change their payment terms unilaterally,” she says, commenting on one of the economic effects of the COVID-19 health crisis. “Our job now is to keep ahead of our outstanding invoices.”

Crediting a new customer service rep, Angel Wimbley, who has been charged with that task, O’Keefe says, “We’re having great success with that now.”

The Flight Plan So what does Jet’s future flight path look like? In Mike’s view, business is looking positive for the coming years. “Our volumes are increasing,” he says. “We have some good account prospects on the horizon, and in our area, there is great opportunity in the developing e-commerce market, with inside printing and digital options.” Mike adds that technology will drive their business, as the growth will demand faster equipment and software solutions.

Like so many independents in our industry today, Jet struggles with recruiting and retaining people. Hence, Steve says, they are eyeing future investments in automating machine centers and improving workflow and throughput in the plant. “Our focus will be on how fast we can convert and ship an order,” he says.

During our visit, he pointed out new locations for receiving doors to smooth out incoming shipments of sheets and reduce time in raw material movement

Jet’s four-color Latitude flexo folder gluer was recently upgraded with Apex GTT-series anilox rolls.

through the plant. He is also looking at upgrading the company’s ERP system to provide real-time scheduling and production information as well as improving the experience for customers who place and track orders online.

Steve says he doesn’t come by this vision in a vacuum. He and his management team are collaborators by nature and are of the same mind when it comes to the ethos of the company. When asked, “What’s your elevator speech?,” all respond in the same vein: “Speed to market,” “versatility,” “best in customer service,” and “quality.”

Steve also credits his “outside advisors” on his AICC-sponsored CEO advisory group. In our first few minutes of conversation, Steve points to a group picture on the wall, saying he “gets the best advice” from the other independents pictured.

Steve, a wannabe airline pilot, his brother Mike, and the team have piloted Jet Container to a smooth cruising altitude, even as turbulence has buffeted the economy and the industry. And from all appearances, the company is now cleared for higher success.

Steve Young is AICC’s ambassador-at-large.

He can be reached at 202-297-0583 or syoung@ aiccbox.org.

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Are Your Salespeople

SELLING NAKED? The pandemic has left many scrambling, but agility and adaptation can go a long way toward regaining sales success

BY MARK ROBERTS AND ED WALLACE

“

O

nly when the tide goes out do you discover who’s swimming naked.”—Warren Buffet When the economy is good, salespeople don’t have to be all that skilled. They can get by being “transitionally” average because the tide of business is lifting everyone. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it impacted all sales organizations in one way or another. If a sales team tries to conduct business using past methods and outdated value propositions, they are going to flounder and quickly be washed out to sea.

The new normal for sales is selling virtually, using Zoom or other

videoconferencing platforms. The problem is that most salespeople have not been trained to optimize virtual selling techniques or in how to build relationships virtually. So, they really are selling naked.

Having assessed more than 2 million salespeople over the last 30 years, the data clearly shows about 60% of once-face-to-face salespeople are now struggling without virtual sales skills training and coaching.

If a company hasn’t trained its sales force and updated their website or internet presence within the last 12 months, they are exposing their sales force, just as

in Warren Buffett’s example. They are forced to sell naked.

The Market Response to COVID-19 The market disruption the pandemic caused is much different from past market challenges leaders have faced. In the past, an event occurred, it was over, and organizations adapted.

With COVID-19, the challenges and uncertainty have not ended.

In fact, McKinsey & Co. recently shared the following: “Over 79% of companies are preparing to behave as they are now for 12 months after the pandemic ends.”

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However, the current health and financial crisis presents a unique opportunity to get ahead of the competition and become a leader in the packaging industry. Your packaging customers, like you, are facing challenges unlike anything they have experienced before. Current customers and prospects are looking for help. Our suggestion: Double down on contacting your current customers and strengthen those relationships.

Most salespeople were getting only 45% of the potential from their customers prior to the crisis. That number has likely been reduced due to the need to shift to virtual relationship development.

When COVID-19 first hit, AICC quickly reacted, and we delivered online training covering topics such as virtual selling, building virtual relationships, and social selling in a digital world. More than 500 AICC members participated in these webinars, and the recordings can be accessed through your AICC education profile.

Try not to outreach—just call to make a sale, but strategically strive to build relationships. We encourage salespeople to be invested in serving their customers with market and application insights that buyers can’t find on websites. One outcome of COVID-19 is the acceleration of sales reps to becoming respected advisors to their clients.

Going After New Business It is imperative to continue to talk to new prospects, as well. Take the time to conduct strong discovery calls and offer solutions to problems that customers are facing now. They will become loyal customers in the future.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, almost 50% of buyers reported that their biggest challenge is supply chain disruptions. Maybe you always wanted to sell XYZ Corp., but the competitor gave them a fair price and good service. What if that buyer is struggling right now, looking for a packaging supplier like your firm?

Virtual sales calls have become such an important part of any sales operation that we have a few tips on how to improve selling techniques using today’s technology.

Value, Value, Value First, your salespeople must be equipped with a current value proposition that speaks to the various buyer personas they are in contact with.

If you have not updated your value proposition in the last 90 days, your salespeople are selling naked.

Here’s a simple three-step formula to develop value propositions: • Contain a clear statement.

• Understand the customer perspective.

• Deliver a benefit in regard to needs: º Increases º Decreases º Eliminates Do Your Homework Second, pre-call planning is a must. Do your homework before conducting a virtual business call, and have a concrete reason why your customer or prospect will receive value speaking with you.

Use LinkedIn, Google, and the internet to research the company’s core business.

Read their reviews, study their quarterly financial reports, and learn the key players in the business. And when you call, have

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an idea to offer or an area of the business to discuss. Ask yourself these questions, too: How can I help this business? What is the value proposition that I could offer this business?

People want to conduct business with people who can help them with a solution or offer an idea to improve their operation and profitability. Be that salesperson!

With the amount of information available about every business, it is a relatively easy task to learn about a particular business in order to compose a list of questions and concerns. Prospective clients are searching for a respected advisor, someone who has been around, understands their challenges, and has a solution to their problems.

If your salespeople cannot explain how your product or service will impact the customers’ bottom line, your salespeople are selling naked.

Video or Traditional?

Third, determine when a video call might be more appropriate than a phone call.

We believe that if the call is for a simple follow-up or to stay in touch, then a traditional phone call should suffice. If you want to include data on a slide or pictures of a new product, then the video call is the preferred method. We recommend Zoom calls to build relationships and trust.

If your salesperson is not trained on what mode to use to contact customers based on the circumstance, your salespeople are selling naked.

‘Worthy Intent’ Fourth, approach every interaction with worthy intent. In the bestselling book Business Relationships That Last, the critical role of having worthy intent to help and serve your clients in building relationships is discussed.

The concept of worthy intent begins with a mindset of wanting to serve your clients and help them solve their problems.

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“People want to conduct business with people who can help them with a solution or offer an idea to improve their operation and profitability.

Be that salesperson!”

If your salespeople are dialing for dollars trying to hit their sales quotas and not understanding customers and having worthy intent to serve them, your salespeople are selling naked.

In Your Customers’ Shoes Fifth (we’ll sum it up in one word): empathy. In our training, we suggest that with virtual selling in a pandemic, salespeople must lead with empathy.

Or to put it another way, focus on people first, and products and services second.

Understand Your Customer Needs Today We’ve talked about the “voice of the customer,” in which a team actually calls packaging customers and asks them questions to identify customer satisfaction and more. The following are examples of questions to consider: Why do customers buy from you? Why don’t customers buy from you? How has your customers’ buying process changed in the last 90 days?

In general, what many organizational leaders want to know today is: How do you like virtual sales? Are you having a good experience? How do you like my website?

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Through research, we have found that companies that were early adapters and used virtual sales calls have had very positive feedback from their customers and discovered they prefer using virtual sales calls. Furthermore, more than 60% of customers preferred virtual sales calls. They had been disillusioned with normal face-to-face sales calls for several years but didn’t realize there was an alternative.

Millennials especially are more adept at using e-commerce sites. They want answers fast, and an informative website is the perfect answer for today’s business generation, which needs help and wants answers now!

Social Selling and Prospecting LinkedIn can be a very powerful tool for salespeople. It is not just a search engine for your next job. It is the perfect vehicle for building relationships with CEOs and managers looking for information.

If you have not conducted voice of the customer research in the last 90 days and updated your marketing—you guessed it—your salespeople are selling naked.

Sales Skills Training If you want to drive a salesperson nuts, make them take training they don’t need.

We recommend a prescriptive training process. First, we must determine where the sales team’s skills are today. For example, most sales teams have strong skills in product presentations and product application knowledge.

With more than 50% of salespeople having never received sales skills training, we should not be surprised that many sales teams need help closing, selling on value and not price, and negotiating.

Approximately 76% of buyers have received negotiations training. Buyers have time, and they’re applying negotiations tactics, and salespeople often reduce costs and margins just to keep the business.

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“We have found that companies that were early adapters and used virtual sales calls have had very positive feedback from their customers and discovered they prefer using virtual sales calls.”

If you have not provided sales skills training to your salespeople and not trained them how to build virtual relationships, your salespeople are selling naked.

Building Virtual Relationships In a study of senior executives, 89% said building relationships with their customers is critical to their success, but only 24% had a process in place to help their salespeople.

The Relational Capital Group developed courses and workshops to help salespeople understand how to build virtual relationships. The following are some of the insights from those sessions: • Locate the Relational GPS® (goals, passions, and struggles) of each contact.

• Build relational capital by understanding how to build credibility, display integrity, and be authentic.

• Think about relationships in three dimensions: º Does the customer display acquaintance behaviors toward me? º Are we working together as peers? º Do we ever advise each other when working together?

If you have not trained your salespeople in how to build virtual business relationships, your sales team is selling naked.

Where Are You Now? When business was strong and customers were ordering, many of the sales skills, systems, and process gaps were under the surface. We occasionally had waves of concern, but we were so busy.

When COVID-19 hit, the tide of business went out for many organizations, and gaps became very apparent and needed to be strategically filled with training and coaching.

Is your sales team selling naked today?

Are you losing orders you should have won? Are your once-face-to-face salespeople struggling to conduct virtual sales calls and build virtual relationships? Do you have the right people with the right skills in the right roles today?

We suggest you quickly assess the sales transaction data you have over the last several months, quickly capture the voice of your customers, and clearly understand their challenges and how they want to buy and assess your sales teams’ skills, process, and systems. Quickly fill any gaps you may discover.

Market-leading sales teams will strategically leverage the above insights and not only survive, but also thrive today and in the future.

Mark Roberts is CEO of OTB Solutions.

Ed Wallace is CEO and chief relationship officer at The Relational Capital Group.

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

THE CAMPUS CONNECTION Networking with local schools can connect you with the next generation of productive employees

BY ROBERT BITTNER

A

t a time when many boxmakers are finding it a challenge to bring in a new generation of skilled workers, there has never been a greater need for instructional programs that educate and inspire young people to join the industry. Those programs range from high school work-study or co-op opportunities to full-fledged packaging majors at colleges and universities. They highlight the many possibilities within the packaging industry, in ways that appeal to a young workforce.

“I think young people are coming to packaging because of a combination of factors,” notes Matthew Daum, Ph.D., director of the School of Packaging at Michigan State University. “There is a lot of visibility around issues related to packaging and sustainability. That’s led to a heightened awareness of the industry among young people. It’s also a growth industry. With the rise of e-commerce, young people are being exposed to packaging as a solution more than ever before. And then, the word is getting out that there are more jobs available than there are packaging engineers, so it is seen as a lucrative field with many opportunities. That’s drawing a lot of students.”

For manufacturers who want to engage with those students today—and equip them for positions in the future—the key is to partner with local schools to increase on-campus visibility, share real-world knowledge, and build networking relationships.

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Discovering the Possibilities “Packaging at most universities tends to be a ‘discovery’ major,” says Jay Singh, Ph.D., packaging program director for the Orfalea College of Business at Cal Poly University. That means students do not typically start their college education with the goal of graduating with a packaging major. “It is only after they’ve gone through some courses—or they have friends who have taken packaging courses—that they start to realize packaging is a very strong field.”

That was the case for John Dizon, a Cal Poly graduate and current packaging design trainee with Smurfit Kappa. “I started as a physics major,” Dizon says. “It was something I was interested in, but I did not really know where it would take me. Once I discovered packaging, I switched. For me, packaging is where all

of these different aspects come together, from graphic design to engineering to production”—and, yes, even physics.

“That’s what really drew my attention.”

Erin Wilson, a Virginia Tech graduate and associate packaging engineer for Newell Brands, says, “When I started

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at Virginia Tech, I didn’t know what I wanted to major in. My older brother was also a student at Virginia Tech, and his major was packaging. He said he thought packaging would offer a lot of opportunities. My interests are centered on art and creativity, so he thought packaging and package design would be something that I could get into. I started taking classes my sophomore year, and I ended up loving it.”

Once students discover that packaging is an educational option, they tend to be attracted by the diverse range of opportunities packaging offers for their career. “You can focus on materials and sustainability, engineering, research and development, sales and marketing, testing, design, and so on,” Singh notes. “At Cal Poly, packaging is part of the business school, so our emphasis is on the value proposition driven through business principles and technology.”

For young people who are still in high school or who may not be planning to attend college, Bill Nolan, president of Standard Printing Co., recommends working with local schools to schedule a plant tour as a way of introducing students to everything the industry offers. “It’s important to get them in the building, so they can understand all the various options that are available,” he says. “Show them the technology that’s involved in the equipment you have, and help them to see that there are lots of different jobs available—from desk

“I can’t stress enough how important it is to establish strong relationships with specific teachers, counselors, and others in your local schools.”

—Bill Nolan, president, Standard Printing Co. work to customer service, estimating to prepress, running sophisticated machinery to shipping responsibilities.”

Nolan’s approach underscores how vital it is for boxmakers and suppliers to build strong relationships with education partners, including high schools, vocational schools, colleges, and universities.

Such partnerships are critical for finding students interested enough to take the next step to an internship.

Exploring the Options When Wilson was looking for her first internship, she once again took her older brother’s advice and visited the website for the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation (ICPF). “They had tons of packaging internships and entry-level positions that you could apply to,” she says. “Not long after I uploaded my résumé, I heard from Richard Flaherty, the president of ICPF. He guided me toward some of the openings posted on the website. One of them was an internship with AICC. That was my very first internship.”

Supported by corrugated manufacturers and suppliers—and co-sponsored by AICC and the Fibre Box Association—ICPF offers a wealth of resources for students, recent graduates, and boxmakers alike. ICPF’s website features a Career Portal, Résumé Bank, a LinkedIn network, and access to a free online corrugated curriculum providing a comprehensive overview of corrugated manufacturing—including production,

design, performance specifications, testing processes, and corrugated’s role as a cost-effective, high-performance, sustainable packaging choice. The site is an essential stop for students seeking internships, as well as companies looking for interns and entry-level employees.

For Nolan, high school teachers represent the link between his company and young workers. “I make a concerted

effort to connect with the local high school teachers who are likely to have students who would gravitate toward this type of environment,” he says. “Then I work to schedule tours with them. At the end of the tour, I make a pitch about internships or co-op opportunities.

Interested students then submit a résumé to their teacher, who helps to filter the candidates. If they’re not going to be a good fit, the teacher won’t send them my way.

“I can’t stress enough how important it is to establish strong relationships with specific teachers, counselors, and others in your local schools,” Nolan continues.

“Once they understand the industry and the opportunities you’re presenting, they can become sales reps for your company and work on your behalf with students on the recruiting side.”

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In addition, most colleges and universities with packaging programs host industry-specific career fairs, which bring boxmakers and potential interns and employees together. At Cal Poly’s annual packaging career fair, Singh notes, “We get approximately 30 companies, including quite a few that are corrugated-specific, that come to recruit from us.”

At Michigan State University’s packaging career fair, Daum says, “We generally have more companies interested than we have spots available, and we easily have over 100 companies participate.

Companies set up a booth, meet students, and then have a few days of follow-up interviews. Most of our students get hired through that process.”

Building on Connections After interning with AICC, Wilson went on to intern with Pratt Industries.

That connection happened when a Pratt Industries designer spoke to one of her Virginia Tech classes. “I reached out to him after his presentation, asking if they

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had any internships available. I didn’t get it the first time I applied, but I got it the second time, doing structural design.”

“At Cal Poly, I was part of the Poly Pack Club, a packaging club focused on connecting all the packaging students in the program,” says Dizon. “It’s also a resource to help all those packaging students find career opportunities and host packaging-related events. One of those events is an annual symposium to help introduce students to new companies and potential employers. One year I made a presentation at the symposium when the former director of innovation for Smurfit Kappa in the United States was one of the guest speakers. Afterward, he reached out to me on LinkedIn and invited me to get involved with an internship at one of the company’s Los Angeles-based plants.

Once I graduated, that internship turned into a full-time position.”

Daum believes this kind of on-campus engagement is critical for boxmakers hoping to connect with a young workforce. “Have regular engagement with the

school throughout the year,” he advises.

“There are multiple different touch points that can be utilized by industry: guest classroom lectures, sponsoring research, speaking to student packaging groups.”

Not only will you be increasing student awareness of everything the industry and your company offers, you will be improving your own brand awareness. “If you’re a company that doesn’t have its own retail brand, students do not usually know who makes the paperboard box, the carton, the corrugated box,” Daum points out. “Manufacturers have to work harder at making themselves known to students while they’re in the program. Interfacing with students throughout their undergraduate years in the classroom and in student groups is critical to tell the story about what you do and why students should consider your industry as a career option.”

Committing to the Future While some manufacturers may feel they are at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting young workers—one common

“Interfacing with students throughout their undergraduate years in the classroom and in student groups is critical to tell the story about what you do and why students should consider your industry as a career option.”

—Matthew Daum, Ph.D., director, School of Packaging, Michigan State University

assumption being that boxmaking and packaging may not be “exciting” enough to draw a younger generation—Singh disagrees. He believes that, while students may be uninterested if someone simply talks about the benefits of corrugated, you will capture their attention if you focus on strategic goals and problem-solving.

“Young people get excited when you talk about designing or selling a solution for customers and not just a box,” he explains.

Finding customer solutions across a wide range of disciplines is what makes the industry truly exciting. “As an intern or a new hire, you might just be sheeting or converting or doing things that are not

YOUTH APPEAL Given the popularity of social media among students, boxmakers may feel they need to present a regular stream of Twitter and Instagram posts if they hope to communicate with a potential younger workforce. That may not be the case.

suggests that it can be an effective means for building brand awareness.

“Kids become familiar with the brand names they see in stores and through social media,” he says. “Those are the companies that come to mind when the career fair comes around and students “I’m not sure how critical a social media are deciding what line to stand in for presence is,” says Virginia Tech graduate an interview. You may be well known Erin Wilson, who notes that she is not in the boxmaking industry, but if it’s big on either LinkedIn or Twitter. However, not your company’s name students see she does believe a company’s website when they walk into a store, you may is important for potential interns and for need to compensate with a strong social graduates seeking full-time jobs. media presence.”

When she was in that position, she says, It also is important to be aware that she chose not to follow up with some maintaining an active social media companies because of their poor webpresence carries a certain level of sites. “Their websites just weren’t put responsibility. “Social media is one together well. The website is a reflection way to get your message across,” says of the company. So you’re hoping to see Cal Poly graduate John Dizon. “But you something that looks professional. A have to be very careful with it, because company might be really great. But if a lot of social media initiatives just their website doesn’t portray that, it’s seem superficial—like there’s not a lot hard to get interested.” of substance behind the message.” For example, he says, “It isn’t enough to say For businesses that do want to reach you’re sustainable. You have to back it up out via social media, Michigan State with evidence.”

University’s Matthew Daum, Ph.D.,

glamorous. But you need to think about what solution you’re creating.”

In addition to doing engaging work, young people want to invest in workplaces that mean something to them, that reflect their own values, Dizon believes. The more companies can speak to these things, the more appealing they become as employers. “For me, the working environment is really important,” he says. “I want to work in a place that is welcoming and makes you feel great. The younger generation cares deeply about productive relationships and work-life balance. We want to feel a genuine connection to our workplace.

So it’s important to have a welcoming atmosphere where people communicate with one another.

“It’s also important that a company demonstrate a clear and sincere commitment to key issues like sustainability. We care deeply about the environment and want to see that a company does, too, in a way that goes beyond short-term profitability and is more forward-focused.”

Singh says, “I believe that if you can help younger people to understand the bigger picture of what they’re doing and how it contributes to your business and to the industry, it is easier for people to really enjoy and love what they do.”

Robert Bittner is a Michigan-based freelance journalist and a frequent BoxScore contributor.

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

47

2020 ANNUAL REPORT AICC and its members pivoted significantly in FY 2020

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

A

ICC’s 2020 fiscal year (FY 2020) ended on June 30. With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, AICC was two-thirds of the way through its fiscal year. As you can imagine, with this life-changing event, a review of the past fiscal year is a tale of two experiences. Prior to the pandemic, AICC was continuing to refine its programming to be the most effective it could be for all levels of membership, boxmaker to supplier, small to large.

With the onset of the pandemic, AICC pivoted all programming to be online, and members responded with vastly increased participation compared to pre-pandemic program consumption in some areas.

AICC commenced a daily COVID-19 update page on its website. Website visits grew by nearly 300% as members desired timely information. AICC joined the Zoom movement and conducted weekly COVID-19-related videoconferences, often engaging with more than 300 members per session. All were eager to learn from their fellow AICC members the best ways to serve customers and protect employees. Online education content grew to 80 courses, with nearly one-quarter available in Spanish. Member participation in AICC education programming was continuing to grow during the fiscal year, up until March, when utilization of AICC’s online education, a free member benefit, exploded. 2019 average monthly logins were 409. April, May, and June logins averaged 1,309 per month. AICC’s E-Commerce Xperience in February was the last major event prior to shutting down in-person AICC meetings. We had 145 very engaged attendees. AICC’s last national meeting was held in fall 2019 in Toronto. AICC will optimistically commence in-person meetings again in 2021.

With the shutting down of segments of the economy earlier this year, members faced a great deal of uncertainty. AICC advocated directly with several state and local entities on the question of “essential”

businesses, supply chain integrity, and the role of AICC members. AICC partner associations such as the National Association of Manufacturers, the Council of Manufacturing Associations, and the Small Business Legislative Council played an important role in ensuring that AICC was able to keep its members informed of the unfolding of government policies and guidance in an ever-changing landscape.

These partnerships continue to serve AICC and its members on an ongoing basis.

Membership AICC welcomed 21 new general members into the Association and 15 new Associate members. Dues revenues totaled $1,608,190 in FY 2020, up from $1,574,502 the prior year. The Association’s membership retention rate was 92% against a target of 93%. The total number of AICC member corporate entities, national and international, general, and Associate members is 471. General members are boxmaking members. Associate members are suppliers of machinery, materials, ancillary equipment, and services to boxmakers.

Education and Training AICC’s industry-specific education and training programs brought in $445,529 in revenue in FY 2020. We rightfully shine the spotlight on AICC Education Investors as they continue to be indispensable partners in the development of education programming that directly impacts the employees of all AICC members. Please thank them for their continuing support of AICC’s mission of educating the industry’s workers. AICC’s Education Investor partners are: Fosber America, BCM Inks, SUN Automation Group, JB Machinery, Pamarco, Absolute Engineering, Printron, EFI, Kruger, Bobst, HP, and Stafford Corrugated Products. Through their financial support and the sharing of their experts’ precious time, and in providing technical content, these companies support AICC’s growing

catalog of online education and training programs, in English and Spanish.

Members’ increasing utilization of AICC’s online education was occurring pre- and post-pandemic. As a reminder, access to AICC’s online education for each member company’s employees is included with your membership. AICC maintains its partnership with The Packaging School, Greenville, South Carolina, a leading online educational platform for the material handling, packaging, and processing industries. At the end of FY 2020, the Packaging School and AICC partnership provided members with 80 online courses, up from 64 courses available the previous year, at no additional cost, in disciplines covering production, sales, design, customer service, and general leadership and management topics. As of June 30, AICC members had completed 4,962 online courses since AICC’s Packaging School went live in spring 2017. The telling statistic of completed courses is that at the close of FY 2019, AICC members had completed 1,891 courses. More courses were completed this year than in the previous three years combined. One reason for this growth was that training figured in the calculation for eligible employee time taken into consideration in the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, one of several COVID-19-related initiatives launched in response to the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic and the shuttering of so many aspects of the economy.

Translation of AICC online courses into Spanish continues with the valuable assistance of Marco Ferrara and his team at AICC member Cajas de Cartón Sultana S.A. de C.V. and Juan Javier González and Samuel García González at AICC member Cartró S.A.P.I. de C.V. for their support to ensure technical accuracy and correct Spanish terminology.

When the pandemic struck, AICC and The Packaging School made several online courses available at no cost to packaging schools nationwide, as well as to a school

Associate 214 206

General 282 261

in Canada. Because of COVID-19, these schools had sent students home in the spring for their safety. There were no in-person educational opportunities in the packaging disciplines. By granting packaging schools access to certain AICC Packaging School content, students have been able to keep engaged remotely and progressing with their knowledge of paperbased packaging. This program continued through the summer months and has proved to be a great way to keep AICC and its members in front of students who will be entering the industry workforce shortly.

AICC’s Xperience event was held in February in Dallas and was focused on e-commerce. Attendance was 145.

The AICC Xperience is an annual education-related event that presents an industry trend or important topic in a multifaceted way over a rigorously scheduled three-day period. The AICC Xperience will continue, as it has become an eagerly anticipated event.

AICC created one new CEO Advisory Group and filled vacated seats in several existing groups. CEO groups were meeting regularly until the pandemic hit, after which several groups continued to offer support, advice, and guidance to fellow members through virtual meetings. AICC also launched a Leadership Advisory Group and a Production Leadership Group during the fiscal year.

During the first three months of the pandemic, AICC offered 12 webinars, more than half of which were free or sponsored, so there was no charge to AICC members. Four of the webinars were specifically COVID-19-related, and

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

49

Meetings & Summits

2019 ANNUAL MEETING, TORONTO

FY 2020 SUMMIT ATTENDANCE

TOTAL MEETING REVENUE

Total Attendance: 560 • 48% boxmaker companies • 46% Associate companies • 6% Other

8 Events Total Attendance: 401

$796,831

First-Timer Attendance Increase: 68 Boxmaker Attendance Increase: 54%

*Revenue does not include AICC Canada or AICC México.

the remaining webinars were designed to help members to improve operational and plant efficiency and/or to help members improve their virtual and online sales skills. Total attendance at these online presentations, along with the weekly AICC COVID-19 Zoom conferences, totaled more than 2,300 members.

National Meetings, Regional Summits, and Special Events Attendance at AICC’s national meetings, summits, and other events totaled 961 people in FY 2020, which ended June 30. The 2019 Annual Meeting in Toronto drew 560 attendees and featured a Practical Innovation in Package Design Forum, a one-day training, an Emerging Leader program titled Finding Your Voice & Increasing Your Impact, and the Independent Packaging Design Competition. The competition brought in 146 total entries, surpassing the goal of 115, from 32 AICC member companies.

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

AICC hosted eight summits in FY 2020 (most in calendar 2019), two of which included golf tournaments, and two of which were AICC’s annual ski events. Additionally, several events were held in Canada and Mexico. The U.S. summits were attended by 401 members and guests. The annual AICC México meeting was postponed. AICC Canada was able to hold its annual general members meeting, the President’s Luncheon, and its holiday party in Toronto.

Combined revenue from AICC’s U.S. national meetings and summits was $796,831. This was short of budget by $755,000. This shortfall is essentially because of the cancellation of AICC’s Spring Meeting in April. All AICC in-person events for April through June were canceled.

Publications and Advertising AICC publications and advertising spent FY 2020 in a state of evolution. Revenue totaled $319,062, down slightly from FY 2019. The components of the total were

$305,662 in website and print (BoxScore) advertising and $13,400 in publication sales. AICC website advertising was “slowed” by an exciting project. AICC updated its iDirectory of members to be much easier to navigate. A well-reputed contractor to the association marketplace, Naylor Association Solutions, built the new directory. In return for doing so, Naylor is now responsible for selling webbased advertising for AICC. The revenue percentage that Naylor receives is paying for the new, more useful iDirectory.

AICC publications are all downloadable now. There is no longer a hard copy inventory of AICC resources. Following a well-attended session at the Annual Meeting in Toronto, AICC created a new white paper, Cost of Corrugated Packaging Production Across Print Technologies, which is a comparative study of data provided by more than 50 packaging manufacturers and suppliers as it pertains to the cost to produce one exemplary box by various methods.

Also released this year was the third edition of Understanding the Key Characteristics of Linerboard. The major publication launched this year was AICC’s popular Salary, Hourly Wage, & Benefits Report.

AICC Canada AICC Canada encompasses Ontario, Québec, and the Maritime Provinces. It is run by an independent board of directors led by Stephen Moore of Moore Packaging, Barrie, Ontario, who serves as AICC Canada president. AICC Canada hosts a number of events annually and provides

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various services to its members locally. In FY 2020, events included a general member meeting, the annual Christmas party, and the winter President’s Luncheon. AICC Canada’s golf event, held jointly with the Canadian Corrugated Case Association, was a casualty of the pandemic. Longtime AICC Administrative Director Jana Marmei retired and was replaced by Renee Annis. AICC Canada publishes its own regional membership directory and biennial salary survey. Terri-Lynn Levesque of Royal Containers Ltd. serves as the Canada director on the AICC U.S. board of directors. For more information on the activities of AICC Canada, contact Renee Annis, administrative director, at 674-264-8674 or rannis@aiccbox.ca, or visit www.aiccbox.ca.

Pulp and Paper Industry, the Fibre Box Association (FBA), Flexographic Technical Association, the American Forest and Paper Association, and others. Internationally, AICC maintains membership in the International Corrugated Case Association (ICCA), where we are represented on its board of directors by AICC Overseas Director Kim Nelson, who is CEO of Royal Containers Ltd., Brampton, Ontario.

AICC is a participant at these organizations’ meetings each year. Unfortunately, several were cancelled due to the pandemic, including FBA’s and ICCA’s. AICC also maintains a close relationship with the U.K. Sheet Plant Association and the European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers.

AICC México In 2020, AICC México was all about growth and new programming. While the annual meeting was cancelled due to the pandemic, engagement for online webinars on COVID-19- and industry-related topics that were quickly developed by staff and AICC México members was extremely high, with an average of more than 200 participants per event. Well-regarded experts helped members to cope with the unfolding situation in the country. General membership continues to grow, as does the AICC México Emerging Leaders program.

AICC México members are playing a vital role in the translations of AICC online education materials into Spanish. Founded in 2001, the regional association continues to be a vital and growing part of AICC’s international family. AICC México is represented on AICC’s board of directors by Juan Javier González, president of Cartró S.A.P.I. de C.V. in Tepotzotlán, Mexico.

For more information on the activities of AICC México, visit www.aiccmx.com.

Financial Results AICC was unable to overcome the loss of revenue that the pandemic and related government shutdowns brought to bear, specifically not being able to hold the 2020 Spring Meeting. Keeping AICC members, AICC staff, and AICC partners safe always guided AICC’s decision-making and actions. AICC’s executive committee and

Executive and Governance AICC continued its traditional collaboration with related industry trade associations, including the Technical Association of the

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board of directors has been fully engaged throughout the crisis.

AICC’s operations in FY 2020 brought in $3,275,933 in revenue and realized expenses of $3,392,466. This resulted in a net operating income of $(130,677). This income, along with $(687) in nonoperating income, brings a total net income of $(131,364).

These numbers have been prepared and confirmed by AICC’s auditor, Mullins PC, of Bethesda, Maryland. AICC members who wish to receive a copy of AICC’s audited financial statement should send a request in writing to Mike D’Angelo, president, AICC, PO Box 25708, Alexandria, VA 22313, or email mdangelo@aiccbox.org.

Although AICC operated at a loss in FY 2020 (the first loss since FY 2012), the overall financial position of AICC remains quite strong due to long-term investments, cash on hand, and well planned future near-term budgets.

Due to the participation and planning of the board of directors, the success of AICC events in the past, and strong membership retention and renewals, AICC is well positioned to continue serving you well into the future.

Balance Sheet Year Ending June 30, 2020

2020

2019

4,947,384

4,704,455

Property & Equipment

462,581

486,504

Other Assets

157,337

113,408

TOTAL ASSETS

5,567,302

5,304,368

Current Liabilities

1,724,572

1,374,203

Current Assets

Long-Term Liabilities

158,273

114,334

TOTAL LIABILITIES

1,882,545

1,488,547

Unrestricted

3,682,491

3,799,711

Restricted Net Assets TOTAL LIABILITIES & NET ASSETS

1,966

16,110

5,567,302

5,304,368

Income Statement Year Ending June 30, 2020

2020

2019

TOTAL REVENUE

3,275,933

4,058.009

Operating Expenses—Program

3,078,685

3,434,823

Operating Expenses—Management TOTAL EXPENSE OPERATING INCOME NONOPERATING INCOME TOTAL INCOME

313,781

298,387

3,392,466

3,733,210

(130,677)

324,799

(687)

(55,492)

(131,364)

269,307

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INTRODUCING AICC’S FOUNDATION FOR PACKAGING EDUCATION Another movement toward a better-trained workforce

A

ICC has a diverse group of member companies that total nearly 500. They range from single sheet plant operations to multiple-facility, integrated papermakers and converters, from single-employee technical service providers to multinational machinery builders. They are boxmakers, and they are suppliers. They are in the corrugated, folding carton, and rigid box markets.

Despite this variety, AICC members have a major thing in common: people.

And with people there is the need to hire and retain workers at all levels in their organizations, particularly in the manufacturing environment.

The more knowledgeable the industry is, the stronger it will be. Dick Troll, AICC’s first executive director, once famously remarked, “You have people running a million-dollar flexo who you wouldn’t let drive your car!” Education and training were his passion. He always said that every worker deserved a chance to better themselves—and not just for their job

performance. Their dignity and self-respect mattered more. Troll’s passion led AICC into the forefront of industry training and education for all levels of employees.

Troll was instrumental in the launch of AICC’s first education foundation, the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation (ICPF) (see sidebar and page 64 of this issue). ICPF is now in its fourth decade of providing funds for collegiatelevel corrugated-oriented education curricula and equipment.

While ICPF brings people to the plant door, AICC’s mission is to educate and train them once inside. A company that cares enough to invest in their employee education and training is one that is regarded highly by its team members and fosters loyalty.

That sentiment, and Troll’s vision for industry workers, is backed by studies that have shown that manufacturing companies that can demonstrate investment in industry-related employee education are more likely to fill open positions, promote

MILLIONDOLLAR MATCH AICC’s board of directors has created a matching grant. AICC will match the first $1 million in pledges received by the Foundation during its first year.

This doubles the impact of all donations made. Eleven companies have already pledged more than $500,000. Donors to date include: Bay Cities, DeLine Box, Harris Packaging, Jamestown Container Packaging, Michigan City Paper Box, Oklahoma Interpack, Package Crafters, Packaging Express, Standfast Packaging Group, SUN Automation, Wasatch Container. To make a one-time donation or a multiyear pledge, contact Michael D’Angelo at mdangelo@AICCbox.org or 703-535-1386.

BOXSCORE www.aiccbox.org

55

GOVERNANCE The chairman of the Foundation for Packaging Education’s board of directors is the chair of the AICC Past Presidents’ and Past Chairmen’s Council, Al Hoodwin of Michigan City Paper Box; the chairman will serve for one year. The vice chairman will be the immediate past chairman of AICC’s board of directors, Joe Palmeri of Jamestown Container. The rest of the foundation’s voting officers comprise AICC’s Executive Committee, namely Jay Carman of StandFast Packaging Group, Gene Marino of Akers Packaging, Jana Harris of Harris Packaging, Matt Davis of Packaging Express, and Gary Brewer of Package Crafters. Nonvoting advisors are Greg Tucker of Bay Cities and Jerry Frisch of Wasatch Container.

Articles of incorporation were filed with the Commonwealth of Virginia, and a set of bylaws was created this past summer. Any member that would like to receive a copy of these documents may do so by sending a request to AICC President Mike D’Angelo at mdangelo@aiccbox.org. from within, and retain team members than those that cannot.

Education in a manufacturing environment is seen by AICC as a quality-of-life driver. High utilization of AICC’s online Packaging School, webinars, and seminars by its members underscores the fact that thousands of industry employees require training daily. Training ensures not just proficiency in a discipline but also the opportunity for advancement as the employee learns more. This requires a broad-based, transparent, educational eleemosynary organization.

In a series of actions by its board of directors that began in January, AICC has created the Foundation for Packaging

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

Education, its second nonprofit 501(c)(3) education endowment fund.

AICC member companies, industry foundations, and government granting agencies, through the foundation, will support the development and dissemination of employee education and training resources for workers in the corrugated, folding carton, rigid box, and related supply chain industries.

Funds raised by the Foundation for Packaging Education will be used to support workforce development, including to: • Underwrite costs associated with providing education and training programs to the industry, curriculum development, learning management system platform costs, and instructor fees, thus helping to lower training costs for AICC members.

• Provide funds for a formalized certificate skills achievement program.

• Provide funds for the creation of aptitude testing for pre-applicants for defined in-plant positions.

• Provide funds for in-person, goal-based training programs for manufacturing floor teams.

• Provide funds for educational and scientific research.

• Develop and support industry-specific paper-based packaging education and training programs.

• Assist members in developing internship programs for their companies.

• Translate online courses into Spanish.

• Provide payment of professional services and instructor fees.

• Underwrite staff support needed to oversee the execution and completion of all foundation activities.

Your company can be a part of growing your industry via taxdeductible contributions that will benefit AICC’s industry-specific education and training programming through the Foundation for Packaging

Education. See more of what your contribution to the Foundation can do at www.packaginged.org.

AICC’s executive committee, consisting of the voting officers and nonvoting advisors to the AICC chairman, will be the Foundation for Packaging Education’s board of directors.

AICC’s Foundation for Packaging Education is uniquely positioned to reduce the training expense for AICC member companies as well as the broader corrugated and paperboard packaging industries. In essence, the foundation gives back to members by lowering these expenses.

Interested in learning more and in becoming a donor? Please contact AICC Director of Education Taryn Pyle at 703-535-1391 or tpyle@aiccbox.org, or AICC President Mike D’Angelo at 703-535-1386 or mdangelo@aiccbox.org.

Learn more about the Foundation for Packaging Education at www.packaginged.org.

COMPLEMENTARY PURPOSES AICC and other such 501(c)(6) organizations commonly have more than one supporting foundation. AICC’s first, the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation, was created and launched by AICC in 1985 and has been co-sponsored by AICC and the Fibre Box Association since 1990.

Reasons for having multiple foundations go primarily to the need for being able to support functionally different requirements and demands for education resources that come from AICC member companies and the industry at large. The Foundation for Packaging Education’s differentiating factor will be its focus on workforce development needs. Both foundations are worthy of support.

Thank You, Education Investors These companies are making a significant contribution to the online education available to all AICC members.

For more information, contact Mike D’Angelo, President, 703.535.1386 or mdangelo@aiccbox.org.

The Associate Advantage

Essential Is Exactly What Our People Are

BY JOE MORELLI JOE MORELLI HUSTON PATTERSON PRINTERS VICE CHAIRMAN JMORELLI@HUSTONPATTERSON.COM

PAT SZANY AMERICAN CORRUGATED MACHINE CORP. CHAIRMAN PSZANY@ACM-CORP.COM

GREG JONES SUN AUTOMATION GROUP SECRETARY GREG.JONES@SUNAUTOMATION.COM

TIM CONNELL A.G. STACKER INC. DIRECTOR TCONNELL@AGSTACKER.COM

DAVE BURGESS JB MACHINERY IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIRMAN DBURGESS@JBMACHINERY.COM

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

“Every problem is a gift—without problems, we would not grow.” —Anthony Robbins

U

nless someone has been under a rock this year, it’s safe to say the COVID-19 pandemic has provided us all in the business world a once-in-alifetime problem to take on. Who would have ever thought just eight months ago that we would be classifying businesses as essential and nonessential? We are an essential industry, and over these last few quarters, we have crashed right through the barriers to keep our businesses alive.

During these crazy times, I can’t help but be proud of what we have done as an industry. Our industry has been battling through all this adversity to produce cleaning supply cartons, COVID-19 test kit boxes, food packaging, personal protective equipment, medical packaging, and more. Our great industry is tied to so many others. We play a significant role in so many aspects of life and supply chains that serve real purpose in people’s lives.

Being essential has meant that we are needed. Our companies have been counted on to continue to deliver regardless of the virus or whatever else is going on in the world. We have all had to adjust the way we do business, maintain our distance, and keep each other safe.

We have all had to reimagine how we communicate and coordinate, and how we interact with our partners. We have all had to keep delivering on what we promised. In our case, AICC members and Associate members continue to count on one another—perhaps more than ever.

We are essential, but it is the people who have kept us moving forward that really need to be recognized during these times. At Huston Patterson, we constantly

talk about our “real people,” who have been at the very center of the adaptation and success of our company for more than 100 years. Over the course of 2020, I have heard stories from our partners and friends in the industry about how their people have helped their companies adjust. The solutions to problems we never thought existed were tackled willingly by people who just wanted to help their employer survive these unprecedented times. These are the people who, in my mind, have gotten our industry through these last few months. These are the people who make us essential.

AICC has a network of more than 200 Associate members and more than 250 general members that have proudly stepped up to the challenge of doing business in this unique time. A lot of us have continued to safely visit with our partners to help ease their packaging needs, keep their machines running, repair equipment, install upgrades, and provide services essential to keeping businesses running. As we get close to the end of the year—and hopefully closer to an end to this crazy pandemic—it is with pride that I look back on the way our industry has pushed through it.

More so than our businesses being considered essential, I think it is important to stress that “essential” is exactly what our people are. These people have successfully helped tackle the problem presented to us this year and unquestionably helped all of our companies grow in ways we never thought were even possible.

Joe Morelli is vice president of sales and marketing for Huston Patterson Printers and is vice chairman of AICC’s Associate board.

Steve Robinson

Former CMO & EVP at Chick-fil-A

Richard Phillips

Real Life “Captain Phillips” & Author

Gene Marks

Columnist, Author, Small Business Owner & CPA

Strength in Numbers

New Reporting for Converters

BY MITCH KLINGHER

I

n the last issue of BoxScore, I talked about the “new math” for converters and suggested that it was time to shake up your reporting format and methodologies, and improve the quality of the information and customize the reporting for different managers within your organization. On November 17, 18, and 19, I did a webinar in conjunction with AICC to discuss these thoughts in greater depth. The following will give you some insight into these concepts and what was discussed on the webinar. The key questions that you need to ask are: • Should owners and all key managers receive the same reporting every month?

• What are the key performance indicators that you look at every day/ week/month?

• Are they the right ones?

• Can you trust the integrity of the reporting?

• Can/should some or all of these indicators be integrated with your monthly financial reporting?

• What other information can/should be integrated with your financial reporting?

Traditional income statement reporting looks something like this: > Sales less Cost of Goods Sold = Gross Profit > Gross Profit less Operating Expenses = Operating Income Many of you use the following format for internal reporting: > Sales less Variable Costs = Contribution > Contribution less Fixed Plant Costs = Gross Profit > Gross Profit less Operating Expenses = Operating Income The questions to be asked here are: What is a variable cost, and how do you

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BOXSCORE November/December 2020

categorize operating expenses? In theory, a variable cost is one that will vary with sales, and the standard categorizations of operating expenses are selling and general and administrative.

Most systems classify materials, labor, delivery, and some plant costs, such as repairs, maintenance, and utilities as variable costs. But is this correct in your plant? How many plant employees do you have in a busy week, and how many do you have in a slow week? How often do you send your plant employees home when you are not terribly busy? Are all of your delivery costs variable, or are many of the larger ones, such as truck rental, depreciation, and drivers’ salaries, relatively fixed over a fairly wide volume of activity?

What about the so-called variable factory overhead—aren’t most of these costs also fairly fixed over a wide range of activity?

All of you have costing systems that are used to predict the contribution dollars of each order. Are you doing anything to reconcile the contribution predicted by the costing system to the actual results of the company at the end of an accounting period? Your systems generally have some sort of a return-on-sale calculation built into every order, and at the end of each period, you can run reports that predict the profitability of the company. Do you ever look at these reports? If so, are they even close to reality?

What about the characterization of operating expenses as either selling or general and administrative? Where are the costs of your design department, customer service department, maintenance department, and sales and marketing departments shown? The answer is somewhere within those broad categories, right?

Wouldn’t it be better to break out these

“cost centers” separately so you can see what these key functions cost you? Won’t this help you provide budget information to those who manage these departments?

Lots of question, I know, but they need to be asked if you are going to make your reporting more meaningful and useful.

To sum up the first part of the exercise that we dived into on November 17, I want you to consider the following and come up with an action plan of what things you wish to change and how you might begin this process: 1. What are the true variable costs that are associated with accepting an order?

2. What can we do to get our estimating system to reflect this reality?

3. How can I get my estimating system to predict the fully loaded profit of an order, and is this even a realistic goal in a custom-job-order world?

4. What steps can I take to reconcile the predictions of my estimating system to the actual results of my operation?

5. How can I create meaningful cost centers within my company’s reporting systems?

The next part of the exercise deals with looking at all of the performance measurements that are made within your operation and determining how to add them to your financial results. Every day, you measure various activities in the plant—in shipping, in delivery, in design, in customer service, in maintenance, and in other key areas. The only statistics that I see on most financial statements is either a percentage-of-sales calculation or a per-MSF or per-ton calculation, and this is applied to every expense item. While there may be some

Thank You, Emerging Leader Supporters These companies are contributing to the future of the industry through the AICC Emerging Leader Program.

The AICC Emerging Leaders program is an exclusive series of training, networking, and leadership opportunities for ambitious young professionals in the paper and packaging industry. With the opportunities and information available in the Emerging Leaders (EL) program, young professionals who are ready to commit to their professional development will have the chance to grow into proven, reliable future leaders in their company and industry.

For more information, contact Scott Ellis at leaders@aiccbox.org.

AICCbox.org/Leader

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value in material margins or contribution margins per MSF or as a percentage of sales, I’m not too sure what applying these metrics to the rest of your expenses does for you. The right metric must be selected for each expense or category of expenses. While percentage of sales may be appropriate for commission expense and material costs, and while plant labor may still be best expressed as a function of output, we can certainly do better with the rest of the profit and loss statements by relating them to other measurements. In order to do this properly, cost centers must be built that transcend the tradition to categorize everything as either plant, selling, or general and administrative. If you have a large design department, maintenance department, or customer service department, these expenses should be grouped as separate cost centers and proper metrics applied to them. Delivery efficiencies can also be added to the shipping and delivery expenses to improve the understanding of the costs for a particular period.

Finally, there needs to be a focus on profit centers and the analysis of customer and product profitability.

Most business people express their progress in terms of gross sales when asked how they are doing. We often hear that last month was a “record in sales” or that sales were down last month. However, we know that not all sales are equal. For example, trade sales are generally less profitable, as are sales of brokered items. Presumably sales of graphics and displays and orders that run across multiple machines and items that require hand labor command higher prices, but are they really more profitable? How can you organize your reporting systems to answer these questions and, once they are answered, to report on where the profitable sales are coming from, from a customer, sales representative, product, and even geographical point of view?

Hopefully, you joined us on November 17 for what was the first effort to offer a deep dive into coming up with actionable solutions for you and your company.

If there is interest in future training, we will schedule more advanced classes. Please contact Taryn Pyle, AICC’s director of education and leadership development, at 703-535-1391 or tpyle@aiccbox.org.

Mitch Klingher is a partner at Klingher Nadler LLP. He can be reached at 201-731-3025 or mitch@klinghernadler.com.

STRONGER TOGETHER As we navigate this crisis, we are here for you.

The COVID-19 Coronavirus has challenged all of us. At TAPPI and AICC, we share in your concerns and remain committed to our industry and to the health and well-being of our members, volunteers, staff and exhibitors. All of which is why we made the difficult decision to reschedule SuperCorrExpoÂŽ and focus on the future.

Announcing

August 8-12, 2021 • Orlando, FL USA Visit supercorrexpo.org for details #StrongerTogether

International Corrugated Packaging Foundation I N T E R N AT I O N A L

PACKAGING

CORRUGATED

F O U N D AT I O N

T

hough the teaching of college classes and labs has been impacted due to the pandemic, the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation (ICPF) has continued its university awards program to provide equipment and grants to its partner universities in preparation for their return to 100% on-campus programming.

North Carolina State, Cal Poly, and University Texas at Arlington Earlier this fall 2020 semester, ICPF purchased and placed a TMI Medium Fluter and accessories at North Carolina State University, where ICPF launched a new corrugated packaging program last year through the purchase and donation of a CAD table. A TMI Sommerville Screen and Disintegrator also were purchased and placed at Cal Poly, where plans are underway to incorporate the corrugated testing equipment into an online virtual lab course during the winter term. Plans also are underway this quarter for the purchase and donation of up to 20 computers, 20 computer desks and chairs, and a stipend for new adjunct packaging instructors at the University of Texas at Arlington, where ICPF purchased and placed a large-scale digital printer last year.

Indiana State University The partnership grants provided through ICPF’s university awards initiative also have been cited by Indiana State University (ISU) for its success in growing its packaging engineering technology program. The ICPF grants have enabled the hiring of a graduate assistant to assist

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Images courtesy of Indiana State University.

Curricula Support and Equipment Donations at Universities Continue During a Challenging Year Though the size of the groups had to be altered due to the pandemic, Indiana State University (ISU) continued its annual ICPF hands-on learning experience program this past summer to introduce corrugated packaging careers to younger students.

Elementary and middle school participants engaged in activities to design their own swords and shields using corrugated materials. High school participants toured the ISU Corrugated Packaging Lab and were provided an overview and introductory materials about the ISU corrugated curriculum.

September 29 —Corrugated Packaging Career Day preparations at Indiana State University.

Indiana State University promotes corrugated packaging careers to college students, both on and off campus.

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International Corrugated Packaging Foundation I N T E R N AT I O N A L

PACKAGING

in regularly marketing the packaging program to Indiana high school and ISU college students, the development of packaging sales certification curriculum, the launch of a corrugated packaging structural and graphic design certificate, the expansion of corrugated packaging courses in design and materials being taught to freshman, sophomore, and junior students, and a substantial 24% increase in packaging technology enrollment, Other recent equipment and financial awards have been provided or committed to Rutgers University, Western Michigan University, Millersville University, Virginia Tech, and LewisClark State College. These ICPF award commitments have been subject to each university meeting annual goals that

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are tracked by both ICPF and ICPF’s independent auditor.

Some of the elements of the new initiatives enabled by ICPF provided equipment, software, and grant awards during the past three years include: the creation of three new corrugated packaging design labs; funding for additional corrugated faculty at four universities; introduction of sales and business into packaging courses; launch of corrugated packaging curricula in two paper science engineering programs; creation of a program to promote corrugated packaging to attract high school students into university packaging programs; introduction of digital printing on two campuses; expansion of a packaging design program to include evaluation and testing of corrugated

CORRUGATED

F O U N D AT I O N

materials; creation of new packaging degrees and certification programs for undergraduate students; and expansions of existing corrugated testing and packaging design labs.

In addition to thanking its corporate partners for their financial pledges that enable these donations, ICPF wishes to thank TMI, Arden Software, Gerber Technology, Esko, and other corrugated suppliers for the discounts and donations provided in support of ICPF’s university awards program.

Richard Flaherty is president of the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation.

The Final Score

Silver Linings & Storm Clouds

I

f there is a silver lining to this pandemic, it is that AICC member box plants have generally been busy. There are exceptions, especially for plants that have a mix more heavily weighted to serving industrial markets. Demand is improved from earlier in the year, but not by historically high percentages. Box shipments are up slightly compared to last year. That is a historical factor—shipments have never been up during a recession, and the U.S. economy, while stirring, has not shaken completely out of its shutdown-induced slumber. And the final third of the year is generally the busy time for box manufacturers.

Members have expressed concerns about “tightness” in the paper markets. Mills have been reducing operating rates and have seen some disruptions due to storms and the fires out west.

Some producers have announced price increases, first for CRB and then for containerboard. These increases should hit around the time you see these words. Upon announcement, Mark Wilde of BMO Capital Markets prosaically suggested, “The industry will likely resemble a joyful conga line with IP leading the dance.” AICC’s paperboard committee follows such pronouncements closely. Speaking on behalf of the independent was the reason why AICC was created in 1974, and it’s a responsibility that we take most seriously. At the direction of the paperboard committee, AICC has created a “Fact Sheet” to assist members’ understanding of the current supply situation. It is available at www.AICCbox.org/2020FactSheet.

When AICC has exercised that voice for the independent, it has usually been on paper-related issues.

But there is a storm cloud in our industry that predates the pandemic, that has AICC’s attention and AICC’s voice—our members’ ability to find and hire people for manufacturing positions in the plant. This issue is not unique to the box plant, but to manufacturing in general. Within manufacturing, the box plant has been seen as a tough sell—hot, dusty, often low-tech. We know this image to be outdated, and AICC has endeavored to provide members with multiple tools to introduce workers into the box plant environment, especially through AICC’s Packaging School.

Pre-pandemic, there were plenty of box plant jobs that needed to be filled in a tight labor market. Amid the pandemic, there are plenty of box plant jobs that need to be filled in a labor market in which U.S. unemployment is at unprecedented high levels.

We see three factors working against filling those positions: workers’ concern for their own safety; the fact that so many school districts in the nation remain closed; and recent policy actions of the U.S. government.

The first factor is understandable—worker fear of contracting COVID-19 is a motivating factor. We believe that the box industry’s safety record speaks for itself and has led AICC members to the early adoption of best practices to keep workers safe from COVID19. The second factor is trickier and requires box plants to be flexible with their workforce, which they have been throughout the pandemic. The third factor is the one receiving AICC’s attention and its voice—enhanced unemployment benefits provided by the federal government, first through congressional action and later by executive order. Depending on where you are in the country, a worker may be receiving more to stay home than to seek employment.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has been a tremendous partner during the pandemic, providing information that AICC has shared with membership. NAM’s “American Renewal Action Plan” includes many recommendations that AICC supports; however, this one—“Congress should provide additional funding to support unemployment insurance benefits”—needs more clarity. Should there be subsequent legislation extending federal unemployment support (not clear at the time of this writing), it must include a cap limiting the benefit to a percentage of a worker’s on-the-job income. This is necessary to ensure that there is more benefit to returning to the workplace and to contributing to the comeback of the economy, instead of watching it happen.

The independent box plant can compete for talent—but the playing field has to be fair.

Michael D’Angelo AICC President

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