Focus: Packaging: Coffee, and concept, stay fresh with new lid

Without a new product, it’s up to the packaging to renew interest in an existing brand—and up to the molder to give it that “buy me” look.

Companies are always looking for new ways to sell their products, and packaging redesign is one of the best methods for giving mature products a new look, to catch consumers’ eyes. Molders, on the other hand, are looking for market segments with products that are less likely to be taken offshore. Packaging fits that bill.For Erie Plastics, a custom injection molder in Corry, PA, packaging has long played a role in the company’s growth. In 2001 Erie opened a 430,000-sq-ft, state-of-the-art facility in Corry with 60 high-technology molding machines. Today, says chairman and CEO Hoop Roche, packaging continues to play a major role in the company’s strategic marketing plan.Roche says Erie’s relationship with its major customers has changed over the past two decades, reflecting changes within the OEMs such as downsizing and restructuring. “Our customers today rely more and more on our capabilities in product design and product engineering,” Roche says. “We’re doing a lot today for our customers that they used to do themselves. That’s one of our strategies to protect our position with our customer base in our chosen markets.”

Catch Your Competitors Napping

One new product recently rolled out by customer Procter & Gamble (P&G) is the Folgers AromaSeal coffee canister. The blowmolded canister required a unique lid design. P&G’s long-term relationship with Erie (a customer since 1981) has been cemented over the years by Erie’s development of an R&D department to provide innovation in design engineering and creative concepts in product development. Brett Niggel, senior product development engineer for Erie and project leader for the AromaSeal lid, explains that Erie worked closely with the development team at P&G to design a lid that was aesthetically pleasing, functional, and manufacturable.

“When they came to us, the design had been formulated, but was in a different shape from what it is now,” says Niggel. “We then went through several iterations from the beginning of the project to what you see on store shelves today. We had a lot of input in that process.We were equal participants in this within the scope of our expertise as a moldmaker and molder, and brought all these disciplines together to get the product P&G wanted.”

Roche says that many companies like P&G use new or redesigned packaging and new colors to reposition a brand during a slowdown in new product introductions. “[P&G] wanted to be first in the market with a radically designed new canister, so one of the biggest challenges was the secrecy involved in the project, particularly when so many people from both companies were involved.”

However, notes Roche, when P&G rolled out the AromaSeal canister, it caught its competitors flat-footed. Niggel adds that the carefully planned new product introduction took several years to bring to fruition. Production of the lid began at Erie in August 2003.

Mold it Right, on Time

In addition to secrecy, another big challenge was meeting the designated timelines for the new product. Niggel notes that because of the lid’s various iterations, it often required retooling. “We had to have the ability to turn around tooling quickly and provide sample parts,” he says.

Roche adds that when working with a consumer products company, many different people, including those in marketing, get involved in the product. “The closer you get to market, the more you get inundated with feedback,” he says. “You have to take the results from that process, funnel them, implement the ideas that are workable, and still meet the deadlines.” Manufacturability is also key, particularly from Erie’s point of view. The challenge was to provide P&G with the lid it wanted and with the moldability Erie needed. “The design has to look appealing, but the lid had to be moldable and accommodate the automated lines at the filling plant,” Niggel explains.

Roche concurs that manufacturability is key. “The product has to look good, work well, and be manufacturable,” he says. “Our expertise with moldbuilding and molding, in addition to design and engineering, gives us a clear advantage as opposed to a design studio that maybe is only designing a product to look good. This saves time and rework.”

Today, using a four-level stack mold, high-speed production processes, and advanced engineering to optimize output, Erie Plastics has positioned itself to meet production demands for the AromaSeal lid. “We’re gaining top marks for our productivity,” Roche says.

Staying Ahead with Engineering, Technology

Additionally, supporting customers on the design engineering side of the business provides protection from competitors, Roche explains, and cements relationships in the consumer and pharmaceutical packaging markets, where Erie Plastics is strongly entrenched. Currently, the Innovation Center (Erie’s facility for speeding customers’ products to market) has 15 team members ranging from design, product, and tooling engineers to quality, automation, and technology engineers specializing in SolidWorks, Pro/Engineer, LightWave, and AutoCAD. Erie Plastics also has a full metrology lab with two full-time technicians. Secondary operations also play a big role in Erie’s programs. These include stacking, gluing, slitting, printing, and packaging.

Erie’s capabilities and engineering expertise also keep it ahead of the pack. “We don’t want to be another commodity molder where they send us a print and we send them a bid,” he states. “We’re trying to be way up the food chain and have an advantage. We’re being very cautious to stay away from anything that is commoditized and instead pursue patented, high-tech processes that protect us from the overseas threat. By the time we do all the design concepts, prototypes, preproduction molds, and capabilities studies, it’s very hard for another molder to jump into a project.”

Erie’s strategy is paying off, although Roche adds that much of the company’s success has come from the same factors that have always been important to growth: price, quality, service, and delivery. Developing long-term relationships, however, takes effort in these tough competitive times.

“I think what really gets you in good stead with customers is reliability and consistency,” Roche says. “Customers want to depend on you and not worry about their lines going down; they want you to be failure proof—to take the surprise factor out—and that goes back to quality, consistency, and reliability.”