Better Together: Live from 2023 CorrExpo - Episode 1

If you're interested in the latest corrugated industry innovations, you're in the right place! This is the first of two episodes of Better Together recorded on site at CorrExpo 2023 in Cleveland, OH, August 29 and 30th. The event was a resounding success, with more than 1,200 people in attendance, an active exhibit floor, memorable networking events, and an expert-led technical program.

In this episode, we'll be speaking with:

·      Jonathan Fore, commercial lead at Baldwin Technologies
Jonathan tells host Jan Bottiglieri about Baldwin's cool new e-resource, PrintEnomic$.

 ·      Greg Jones, executive vice president, Sun Automation
Learn about new technology from this industry machinery leader.

·      Jonathan Lust, segment manager, corrugated, Signode
Jan and Jonathan discuss the industry's new supply change demands.

·      Mark Shulman, rock drummer and CorrExpo closing Keynote Speaker
Mark talks about learning a ROCK STAR ATTITUDE that can lead to higher engagement and better job performance.

Click to read more about CorrExpo 2023, and view slideshows of the Awards Ceremony and the networking event at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

SAVE THE DATE for SuperCorrExpo, September 8-12, 2024 in Orlando, FL. This HUGE, only-once-every-four-years event is not to be missed!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome to Better Together, the Paper 360 Podcast. For listeners interested in all things corrugated, this episode is for you. We recorded these mini interviews on site at Core Expo 2023 in Cleveland, Ohio, August 29th and 30th. The event was a huge success, with more than 1,200 people in attendance, an active exhibit floor, memorable networking events, and an expert-led technical program. In this episode, we speak with Jonathan Four of Baldwin Technologies, who will tell us about some cool new e-resources on printynomics, Greg Jones from Sun Automation, and the new rotary die-cutting technology they shared at their exhibit, Jonathan Lust from Signode, who will talk about handling supply chain demands. And we close with rock drummer Mark Schulman, who gave an outstanding keynote on harnessing that rock star attitude for better performance on the job. I learned so much from these guests, and whether you're a core gated professional or not, I know you'll hear something today that you can bring to work tomorrow. Let's get started. Well, I'm here now with Jonathan Four. He's from Baldwin Technologies, and he's been telling me a little about what Baldwin's been doing here at Core Expo. And I'm here to ask you more, Jonathan, about Baldwin's new ebooks, the Print Enomics series that you were telling me about. It sounds pretty exciting. Can you tell us a little more?

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Yeah, sure. Yeah, of course, you know, the the world is a digital place and the best place to find information is in a digital form anymore. And so we've started a series of ebooks, and you can find them on our website. But the series is called Print Enomics, and you can also find them at printonomics.com. And we just put out a few of them so far, and one of them is actually focused on the corrugated industry, and it identifies four trends that are the most prevalent in the corrugated industry.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Oh, all right. Now um tell me a little about the trends and tell me what you think is particularly relevant for our listeners today.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

So, yeah, I mean there are four trends. I think the one that is most prevalent is the fact that corrugated is now being used for branding. And the days of corrugated being a brown paper box with a one-color, you know, black kind of brand or barcode on it are not over, but they have exploded into corrugated becoming um secondary branded packaging and even sometimes primary brand packaging.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Right, right. So I you know, I've seen two trends that sort of seem to be feeding into that. One is a consumer desire overall to have more um recyclable, sustainable packaging. And two is um the printing capabilities for Corrugated have just, as you said, exploded with different inks and different um machines, different ways of printing that really take advantage of the package.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

They do take advantage of the package and and the and the retailers themselves are taking advantage of the package. So if you think about it, once upon a time, a box would be sitting on, say, the grocery store floor and it had 36 containers in it, and someone had to take out 36 containers and put them on the shelf. Now you can just open the top of the box, it becomes a retail ready shelf set, you slide it on, and you just saved all that labor of the person stocking the shelves. So there's a there's a return on investment to the retailer, there's a brand building opportunity to the manufacturer of the product, and corrugated, as we know, is more stale, uh sustainable, which is good for everyone. It's really a a triple win.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah. Well, as a consumer myself, um, you know, I've been in the store where it I I've seen that type of corrugated packaging. It also seems to kind of keep things organized. Um, it makes it easy for me to identify and select the product I want.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

Right. Yeah, I mean it's no secret that the whole world, but right here in America, is experiencing a labor shortage. And so not having people to stock the shelves, not having people to keep the sales straight, just everyone needs to be able to operate better with fewer people. And believe it or not, corrugated is a key piece in the consumer package good industry being able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Yeah, I do believe that because it's very versatile, it's very customizable.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

Certainly is. And the the other thing that goes with that is it is made possible, to your earlier point, by the fact that they can that printers can do a lot more with Corrugated. So if someone needs three, four, five, six colors on the package in order to make it pop and communicate the brand, they can do that now.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

And just one thing to bring it back, one of the products in our product portfolio, and actually in here and on display in the here in our booth, is an infrared drying system.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

Corrugate is an ungenerally speaking, an uncoated, you know, it absorbs a lot. And if you're putting four, five, six inks on it, you have a big sloppy mess.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:27

So being able to wick the water away with an infrared dryer system, and our zap has to be called flexo dry, is one of the things that has made this shift to branded packaging, branded corrugated packaging a possibility.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

So when in the corrugated converting process would that machinery be added to the line?

SPEAKER_04 5:49

Yeah, great question. It would be at the color stations themselves, the inner interstation. Nan, you don't necessarily need one at every color.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Right.

SPEAKER_04 5:57

But if you're doing um where you're gonna want one is after whatever the most common color is, which should probably be black. And then if you have, let's say, four more colors, you're probably gonna want two more IR dryers.

unknown 6:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 6:11

So yeah, and it just, you know, it allows you to run the press faster, your productivity goes higher, the output looks better. Again, it's a multiple win.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Yeah, I could see that. You know, one thing that interested me when I was learning about these ebooks is they're not what people might think of when you think of an ebook where you just, you know, click to turn a page, click to turn a page. That seems to be really a multimedia presentation, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:36

Yeah, it's it's it's not quite immersive, but it's getting close.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

And it's funny too, we uh we have the ebooks. We ironically also printed some of the ebooks because after all, this is the printing industry, and we don't want to sell printing without printing. And so we used our uh, you know, some of our Baldwin technology equipment in the printing of the book.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

So that's a great way to show off.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

Absolutely. Yeah, in the fashion industry they call that a look book.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Yeah, okay, I get that. So um tell me some things that you may show examples of in the ebook or some things that you may have seen customers doing, you know, with these new printing capabilities, with these new display capabilities that sort of blew you away.

SPEAKER_04 7:22

Yeah, so another big trend is obviously the rise of digital printing. And I gotta tell you, there are uh just even here at the show, there are examples of printed corrugated cartons that are so vibrant, so detailed, you know, so elaborate, so multicolor because of this digital printing that uh unless you knew, you would never guess it was a corrugated part.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

Yeah, it it really is stunning.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

That's I have not been able to spend too much time on this show floor, but I can't wait to get down there and see some of those examples.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

Yeah, definitely worth a look.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Well, with that in mind, and with all you've learned by helping put together these ebooks, um, what do you see ahead for the future? I mean, what more can possibly be accomplished?

SPEAKER_04 8:09

Well, the that's where we get into more of the sustainability issues. And when most people think about sustainability, rightfully so they think about recycling and that type of thing. Sure. With the equipment that we make, we are more focused on reduction of energy needed, right? So for example, um in infrared drying is not unique to us. There are other people that have it, but our infrared uh modules, our flexo dry, uses a proprietary ceramic reflector that focuses so much more of the light onto the surface of the light and the heat of the energy onto the surface of the corrugated that running at around the same power, you would get around 30% more performance. Wow. Now, the other option is you can turn the power down 30% and still get the same output. And that's really what we're going for is helping the world use less energy and still produce the same level of quality.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

And so you can work with your customers to sort of determine where on that uh gradient they fall, you know, how their energy needs maybe balance with their need for speed or the need for yeah, because sometimes you are gonna turn it up and you're gonna get a higher output and your you know your productivity is gonna increase.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

Sure. And other times you may not need that. So the energy savings is right there for you.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Oh, I like that custom ab customability.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

I almost said customability, customer ability, but that's the same thing, really, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 9:39

It really is.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Well, before I let you go, Jonathan, I have a question I've been wanting to ask sort of everybody I'm talking to here at um Core Expo, and that is what is one thing either about your company or about your products or about the industry, one thing that you wish your customers knew, one thing you'd really like to tell your customers.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

So, yes, I know that for sure. So Baldwin Technology is the um has been made up by many, many, many, many companies that have been put together into a company. And actually, the keynote speaker this morning was Bob Chapman from Barry Waymiller.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yeah, he was terrific.

SPEAKER_04 10:17

And we are a result of what he's talking about. Oh, we're not gonna be able to do that. We are the Barry Waymiller Company.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

And so you've been adopted.

SPEAKER_04 10:22

So we've been adopted, and a lot of companies have been adopted and created Baldwin. And what people don't know is all the vast things we we all the different product categories we're in. So someone may think of us as a provider for you know for infrared, but we also do visual inspection and we do cleaning, and we also so really anything that goes on a press and improves the level of quality or the productivity of the press, there's a very good chance we manufacture that.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

All I have to do is ask.

SPEAKER_04 10:54

Just gotta ask. Look us up at VaultmanTech.com.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Excellent. Jonathan, thank you so much for being on Better Together.

SPEAKER_04 11:00

Thank you, Jamie.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Well, now I'm with Greg Jones. He's executive vice president of Sun Automation Group. Greg, you've done the podcast before, so you're an old pro at this.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Welcome to Welcome to Better Together. Glad to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

So Sun Automation is always improving its technology. They're always showcasing something new. Tell me a little about what you're doing on the floor right now at Core Expo.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Okay. Uh some of the new things that we're doing, we have upgraded uh our rotary die cutter. We have a new uh upgraded die cut section uh that's really come from feedback from the uh our customers that are mostly the integrated customers, and their feedback was they needed a more reliable, robust uh die cut section because the paper grades have changed so much uh over the course of the last few years that uh it's far more advanced, more um uh takes more of a durable machine to be able to run that board consistently. And die cutting with agriculture boxes uh has put a lot of pressure on that. So with the feedback, we have upgraded that with our engineering department. Uh another thing that has allowed us to um uh bring new things to the marketplace is our strategic partnerships. And one of the things we're showcasing, and uh we actually were part of the what's new program today uh is our partnership with Algar.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah, I was reading in in the press information that's kind of new for you guys.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

It is, it is. We just joined up with the Algar, they're based out of Barcelona, Spain, and they've uh been in business since 1985, but they have a new product that they actually introduced at FEFCO probably in 2019, 2020, but they're just now bringing it to market and it's an automatic load tag. So it allows a machine right now at the end of a converting line or off the corrugator, there may be just one individual, and all they do all day is stick a load tag inside of a stack of boxes. Uh this here allows it to become automated.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Oh wow, does that allow you to have more information on the tag?

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Uh not necessarily more information on the tag, although the tag will um there's a QR code that they'll scan, so it'll know what the order is and then it'll uh print the tag there so it's gonna be accurate because it's gonna know what is what what is what's shipping, and then it allows uh for a repositioning of that employee somewhere throughout the plant.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

That's a really interesting concept. Okay, so I have to ask you this because Sun is really known as a leader in automation. And when you write for manufacturing industries as I do, you hear a lot of fear from folks who really aren't in manufacturing um that man that automation in manufacturing is going to replace people. Um so tell me what you think about that.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Um there's some truth to that. However, uh one, automation is gonna make it safer for the people that are working. Yeah. Uh so safety is always the uh the big key for TAFE and for the industry at a hundred. 100%. Uh we want people to go home at night. Uh but also um the uh automation is gonna allow you to reposition that person somewhere throughout the organ uh throughout the plant. But all of all the all our customers, including all the OEMs, we're all struggling to get help right now. Yeah. If you go to a restaurant or if you go to uh a hotel or if you go to a box plant, uh there's a lot of folks that haven't showed up for work that day. And so sometimes uh I know somebody just drove over from Chicago yesterday, stopped at two uh service plazas to uh to grab something to eat, and all the restaurants were closed because they didn't have labor. So uh it's a real challenge. It's a it's a huge challenge.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

So, you know, I don't know if you were in the keynote presentation this morning by Bob Chapman. Yep. You know, he addressed this a little, um, talking about an industry that cares for people and how to attract people to an industry. Um I think one problem is if your job is sticking a tag on a box all day, that might not be that exciting to you.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

So this idea of repositioning, you know, where letting automation kind of solve some of those issues that aren't attracting folks to the industry in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Right. It's a mundane job.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Yes. So repositioning folks into a position where being a person might be an advantage.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Correct, correct. Well you're gonna have to have a person that's running the HMI screen on a flexifolder gluer or a rotary die cutter or corrugator. So yes, you can reposition them throughout the plant. And and you're right, the technology on the rotary die cutters and the flexor folder gluers, which we're more involved with, is evolving. Uh if you want to attract young, sharp professionals that are uh are y young people who are coming out of school, they're gonna want something that's more of an iPad related to operate a machine, not the old school of of moving and turning wheels to machinery.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Right. Has that been an adjustment for Sun to kind of to kind of notice these issues and respond in a way that the customers have been asking for?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah, it it we always want to get voice of the customer. That's where majority of our ideas come from. Uh we could we we uh tr in the past some companies, including ourselves, could get kind of arrogant and think our engineers know your the boxmaker's business better than the boxmaker, but always our best ideas come from the boxmakers themselves. And so uh they'll tell us to say this is what we we are needing, here are the issues we're facing, and can you go for provide a solution for us? And it definitely involves that.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

I really like how you call that feedback and not complaining. I think that's very professional and polite.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Well, we need it, we need it. We want the feedback.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Yeah, because otherwise, frankly, if you're not getting feedback from customers, you won't be able to respond to customers.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

And you're gonna get left behind.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Absolutely, absolutely. And there's a big focus too, and the Tappy Safe promotes it, but uh one of our largest customers, he's here today. Uh, one of the things he's always telling us is I want your machinery to uh I want I want it to keep my people safe, and then I want you to make sure the machine doesn't break. Yeah. But in in that order.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Those those are two pretty, pretty, they're big asks, but they're very basic. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Absolutely. One thing we've we've seen is everybody was bringing all this new technology uh to uh the industry, and uh they you can over uh over-engineer products. And so you want to maybe back it down where it's easy to operate and somebody that can come in off the street because uh oftentimes people are thrown into the thrust of the um operations of the machinery uh early. They may day one or day two, they may have to start being asked to operate a machine. Yeah. You want to make it user-friendly.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, I mean, and these are big, complicated machines. So, I mean, when you talk, let's circle back to the rotary die. You see what I did, that rotary, let's circle back. Very nice. Um let's circle back to that rotary die cutter. You said it's new capabilities based on that customer feedback. Right. What are some of those new capabilities?

SPEAKER_00 18:16

It's uh it's gonna allow you to run thicker board, it's gonna allow it to um handle some of the uh complexities of running heavier board. But what's happened is the board's gotten heavier, and if you stayed with the older technology, uh there's uh m about every OEM has broken a journal or had a or had a journal break uh or fell in in production, and that can be dangerous, and it also uh reliability, it may cause a customer to be down three to five days, or if a if uh OEM's foreign it could be uh down for a couple of days.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Oh my gosh, you can't afford that.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

No, you can't.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

And not the way we run.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

That's right. And then you may lose customers because of that.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Oh yeah. But imagine a broken journal would be incredibly expensive.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah, it can be for for all all parties, something you want to avoid.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah, absolutely. Um so what I'm getting this message of is really about that collaboration. Yes. So if you continue to collaborate with customers, what do you see sort of coming down the pike as far as technology? Just be crazy. Just what do you see that could potentially be achievable between a customer and a supplier like Sun?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Uh I mean you're seeing it now. I mean, um used to be there's some box plants, uh a few people that are building grun greenfield plants, and the amount of production they're running uh through that plant, uh and and truthfully the employees aren't there to fulfill a plant like that and that was there in the past, but you may have had a plant that uh employed 300 people and now they're able to employ 50 to 75 people uh and put out twice as much production.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

That's amazing to me. Yeah. That's amazing to me. So any good feedback you've gotten yet from um customers who have tried the the new technology?

SPEAKER_00 20:04

It's is uh we're bringing it to the table now. We've gotten uh a few orders, so it's just going in, but they feel uh their confidence level has probably uh quadrupled, if not tenfold, that they believe that they're not gonna have any reliability issues in the in the future. Um they don't think there's a way that you can break the our journals, and so um we hope they don't, but uh but if uh excuse me, I just want to t Corrugators, that is not a challenge. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

It's not it's not a YouTube challenge to go out and try to break one.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Right, right. But no, we're we're excited about it. And and it makes the machine more productive and it keeps everybody safer.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

I love it, especially that safety part. Like you said, with Tappy, with Tappy Safe, and with every company I've I've spoken to, um that's gotta be paramount. Absolutely. So something I've been asking all of my interviewees is um who do you think you would know um is if you could tell um your customers one thing, what would you really want them to know? Either about Sun, about the future of the corrugating industry, um, about working with a major supplier, what's one thing you really wish your customers knew?

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Uh I think some of them know it. Um one of the things that we see some of the shortcomings is uh especially with the integrated, you sometimes have corporate has certain initiatives and the plants have certain initiatives. And um if you want to continue to have continuous improvement, look at ways uh for better reliability, uh everybody wants that at the end, uh, but the plant may have it hit its PL. And uh we find it to be more successful. Big picture is if the if the funds are coming from corporate, they're sponsoring uh these quarterly preventive maintenance programs or looking at ways to give uh allow the plant to become more efficient to run more product uh uh in a quicker amount of time. Uh That's probably one thing. The other is uh we want uh feedback. We talked about the collaboration. Uh there's something you're not happy about with Sun, and I I would recommend it with any supplier, but is to pick up the phone or or uh and call us and say, hey, here's what we we'd like to see you do better. Because if we don't know, we can't improve it. And and uh while I love good news, um I'd much rather hear uh about one upset customer than ten happy customers. Yeah because the one upset customer is something maybe out there's something we can do to resolve. And it could be a uh a communication issue.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yeah, absolutely. And that's where the opportunity is, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Well, I love that. Greg, thank you so much for coming back to Better Together.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

And it's been a pleasure to speak with you.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Thank you. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

And now on Better Together, I'm pleased to welcome our next guest, Jonathan Lust. He's the segment manager of the Corgated Industry for Signode. And they do automated transit, warehousing, packaging, and they have some new products right here on the floor that they're talking to customers about at Core Expo. Um, Jonathan, welcome.

SPEAKER_05 23:10

Thank you very much to have me again.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Yeah, absolutely. You're an old hand at this. You know what you're doing. So tell me a little about what you've brought to Core Expo and what you're talking to customers about.

SPEAKER_05 23:20

Well, Core Expo is something that Signode uh is involved with every year between Core Expo and Supercore. And although this is a smaller show, we can't fit all of the big machinery into the booths that we have. So so today we have uh one of our bundlers, our squaring uh bundler um that's used to package individual corrugated bundles before they're then put into a s a pallet and then put in, you know, come down a main line to be unitized. So we're s we're ex we're showing the technology, the ease of use, the simple nature of the machines, our new strapping line that's now running the strap on these machines and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

So even though I am not a corrugated professional, even I know that the machines don't just spit out boxes and have them fly across the country to where they need to go. Exactly. There's a whole process. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 24:10

Yeah. So so our part is once the box is manufactured, there and these manufacturing plants are producing so many more boxes per minute now. Right. Our challenge is how do we un how do we put them in the bundles fast enough and unitize them to get them on the trucks to ship to their customers? That's the challenge.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Yeah. So it and capacity really has um amped up in the last few years, and the importance of Corrugated to every supply chain has really sort of, I think the pandemic a couple years ago kind of brought that to the fore.

SPEAKER_05 24:44

It really did. Between exports and, you know, everybody buying off of Amazon and through online, they have to be put into boxes, sometimes boxes within a box, which has driven the growth in a lot of the growth in Corrugated.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Yeah, that yeah. So and Signode's been there for it.

SPEAKER_05 25:00

We've been there for it. Every step of the way, every step of the way. We sure have.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Well, uh, one of my secret spies on the floor tell me that I should be asking you about something called the GCU three.

SPEAKER_05 25:13

That's true. That's the latest generation Cygnode Unitizer, and we are trumping the industry again here with um the ability to put up to six heads in our unitizer. This is after the bundles get strapped with the machine we show here, the bundlers, they're put into a skid, brought down a main line, and the speeds that we're getting out of these machines with up to six heads, redundancy, uh um uh just allow the line to keep running for the most amount of throughput uh going through the line. That's the Jonah of the corrugated plant. If it doesn't get strapped to go on a truck, they're not producing to make money.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Well, if you have a back a backup at that part of the process, it's just gonna flow through the whole rest of the plant, right?

SPEAKER_05 25:57

It is, and that's the importance of having um reliability serv signaled reliability services with service agreements and proactive preventative maintenance for the machines. But some of the features that we have now, it which is new to this industry, is what we call variable head tension and sensitive compression. So what we're seeing now, the advantage of this is it eliminates the damage that the strapping can cause to the boxed loads, the die cut loads, the sheet loads. Those two concepts, variable head tension and sensitive compression acting together minimizes the damage to the board through strapping process, gives a better performing product to be shipped, and customers there they want less and less dunnage and things to protect their load. Yeah. So as we continue to dial this in, I don't doubt that there could be a certainly a chance to minimize the amount of dunnage or possibly even eliminate it dunnage without having to use caps. So we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

I would imagine that would be music to your customers' ears.

SPEAKER_05 26:57

It would be. It would save a lot of time, dollars, and and and money uh with the with the customer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Considering, I mean, uh a corrugated box is a pretty simple product in the mind of most people. It's just a box, right? Just a box. But the process and the variability, and you know, you were mentioning the the different tension and uh compression levels. The compression levels. The more I learn about corrugated, the more I think every box is like a miracle that it comes out there machine.

SPEAKER_05 27:30

And that's important because depending if it's a boxed load, a tray load, uh a sheet load, a die-cut load, they are all different animals and they require different needs. So this GCU3 addresses all those needs now with this variable engine intention.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

That might the phrase just a box might be the biggest myth that people don't know about the corrugated industry. There's no such thing.

SPEAKER_05 27:52

There really isn't. And and the amount of boxes that are produced today is just mind-boggling. Where does it all go? Well, build a house someday and you'll see. Yeah, right. These types of things. It really is incredible the amount of corrugated that's produced and and utilized.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

So, Jonathan, as a segment manager for Corrugated, I imagine you've been working in this sector for a while.

SPEAKER_05 28:12

I have. It's uh since 2009. I've been and I've been with Signode since 1991.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

Wow. Okay, so that's you've seen a lot. You've seen a lot of changes. So tell me something that Signode's doing now that the Jonathan of 10 years, 15 years, 20 years ago would be blown away by.

SPEAKER_05 28:35

You know, the biggest issue that everybody's faced with now is getting employees hired on, trained employees, not only operators, but also maintenance people. So one of the things we're driving to right now is the whole IoT Internet of Things, yeah. And uh we've now are data mining our different types of machines for AI, uh artificial intelligence to be mon computers to be monitoring our machines so that if a motor starts heating up, we're gonna be able to send an email to the maintenance manager at that plant, Signaled service saying, Hey, you you are about to have a problem, you need to look at this. Wow, it's it's becoming into predictive preventative maintenance. That is the key. So not only the redundancy with up to six heads, it for instance in our GCU, that if one goes down, you're still keeping your throughput with the other five or the other four heads. The the concept of knowing a problem is happening before you even know it's happening is key. And that's gonna be the future for both our service team, but also for customers that they can't get they can't get uh really good trained maintenance people in, and this is gonna help fill the fill the voice.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

It's almost like a crystal ball, right? It's it's like the telling the future of your machine.

SPEAKER_05 29:48

Yeah, and that's what blows me away because um you don't have people monitoring this. This is computers that are monitoring this, so it's automated. It's really it's really a cutting-edge artificial intelligence concept.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

That is amazing. It really is. Um we're long past the days where I used to talk to folks in this industry or in the poem paper industry where they'd they'd go out to the mill and smell. You know, they it's something overheating.

SPEAKER_05 30:12

Or they can hear something. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

There's a tick-tick where there should be just a whirr. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:17

Well, and I think the other thing that's important is, you know, traditionally companies have been more in a in a service end as a breakfix. When it breaks, you go in and fix it. Now it's starting to get into different levels of service, service agreements. Whether you want someone to come in on a scheduled time, whether you want to have maybe a heads-only contract where you have people coming in doing proactive preventative maintenance and training the maintenance, or you want a bumper-to-bumper service agreement, uh, our reliability services team can now offer that to our customers.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

That's terrific. Because when you're talking about these quantities, these speeds, you know, there are some just the quantities where some uh plants are running three shifts. Yeah. Um, you really can't afford that downtime.

SPEAKER_05 30:59

That is a fact. That is really a fact. And that's another thing with these new machines, the the GCU three, the heads are all interchangeable with all of our existing machines down to the GCU SmartFlicks, the GCU eights, but you can now remove a head and put a head back in place within a minute or two. Wow. Where it used to be 20 or 30 minutes to change a head head out. Similarly, changing coils of strap, you can change them while the machines are in automatic on the fly, uh, while the you don't have to take the machine out of automatic mode into manual mode to load anymore. It's all done automatically.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

I think that's fantastic. Sounds safer.

SPEAKER_05 31:35

It is.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Much safer. It is. Um, is SigNode able to help out their customers with so many different choices, things changing in and out? Are you able to respond quickly uh when it comes to inventory? Yeah. Yeah, keeping different things on hand to be able to change those out?

SPEAKER_05 31:52

I would anybody that told you differently than what I'm gonna say is is kidding. Because it's been really difficult, as everybody knows, from a parts shortage standpoint, a global parts shortage standpoint. Now that's improving, but we're still seeing much longer lead times than we do uh from various vendors compared to where it was three years ago before COVID. So that's finally starting to catch up. I don't know if it's gonna get back to where it was, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was a year ago. It is good.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

That's good to hear.

SPEAKER_05 32:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

So it sounds like you want to hear more from customers about what they really need and um offer those different options to them.

SPEAKER_05 32:29

We do, and that's what that's why we're already on the GCU3, the third generation GCU. Oh, what the three means getting a better machine, making it even that much better. But we're always listening to the customer so that if there's something that we've missed, could quite frankly, these machines are designed around our customer needs, but as their needs change, we're gonna react and always stay one hip one step ahead of our competitors as well, which is really kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

What do you what has been in your experience the biggest change that you've seen coming that has changed your customer needs?

SPEAKER_05 33:01

Um a lot of it has to do with what I talked about, not having uh they they're having a hard time finding maintenance people, having operators personnel. That's a big thing. Um so that kind of dovetails into the whole preventative maintenance IoT concept. So I think that's probably that's probably the biggest thing. Speed, that's another thing. These plants are producing so much faster um throughput than ever before, and some of the older technology just can't keep up with that speed. Yeah. So putting more heads in the machine, for instance, so less times the platin has to come up and down to create the strapping uh patterns you need, that's where you gain all your speed. Proactive preventative maintenance, proactive maintenance is key to keeping the plants up and running. Again, the unitizers are the Jonah of the plant. If they're not producing and they're not able to get product through there, then they're not making money for the plant.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

It's like I love Lucy with the chocolates coming down the line. It is true.

SPEAKER_05 33:56

It is that's it's that's that is very true. It's a good analogy. You see that. So hope our new machines address that.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

I think I think it sounds like you're on the right track.

SPEAKER_05 34:05

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Before I let you go, you may have heard because you were listening to me do another uh podcast with a guest just a little earlier, and I asked, What is something you really wish your customers knew? Either about Signode, about your product, about the industry in general, what's something you really wish they knew?

SPEAKER_05 34:23

I think um the hardest thing today is that there are there is one person doing what maybe almost ten people used to do. So getting to that person to really explain what sensitive compression does for them, what variable head tension does for you, rather than just be looking at, uh, we've got three choices of this machine. The the I guess the biggest thing is I wished we had more of an opportunity to sit down and really explain how these features and benefits are just that, but how they really benefit the customer in terms of reduced damage, increased speed, redundancy, okay. Throughput and all that.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

So I think uh I think that's so so then I would think from that I'm saying, look, customers for if you're working with Signote or really any supplier, take the time to find out what they can do for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:15

And that's what's great about these these shows, because we have all of our largest customers at one time coming through versus you know only seeing one or two of those influences at a time. So this way we can kind of get everybody at least educated on these things at once. That's true. Here at Tappier or Core Expo.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

That's a that's terrific. That's great to hear. Well, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you came back to Better Together. Okay, and I hope you have a great show.

SPEAKER_05 35:43

All right, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_05 35:45

Okay, bye-bye now.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

And now I'm super excited to be here with rock drummer Mark Shulman. He was our second keynoter. Um, everyone is super energized after his presentation. And I just want to say thank you, Mark, for being on Better Together.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

You are absolutely welcome, Jan. And uh boy, we had a lot of fun today, didn't we?

SPEAKER_02 36:10

We sure did. Man, I wish that the rest of my listeners could have seen their Corrugated uh industry companions up there clapping, uh shouting, yeah, um, and getting into the whole rock star attitude. So tell our listeners who weren't able to be in the room what you mean by that rock star attitude.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

Well, I have a formula that I talked about today. Very simply speaking, we can't control what happens to us so much of the time. And we know that between COVID and all of our life experiences, you being a cancer survivor, me being a cancer survivor. But we always have the power to change, control, or shift our attitudes. And that gives us enormous power. And um people are unaware that you can literally shift your attitude. But what makes it really powerful is that your attitude is what drives your behavior. Right. Think about that. Yeah, one attitude can drive many behaviors, and your behavior is what determines the consequences of your life. Yeah. So this is A times B equals C attitude times behavior equals consequence. That it's the topic of my next book, The Attitude Equation, that I co-wrote with a brilliant man, Dr. Jim Samuels. We're just understanding that we have the power to actually shift our attitudes, and that can control the outcomes of our life. That's huge. It is really think about that. Sit down and think about that. So I talk about a number of different attitudes, and I show people how to create immediate attitude shifts. I saw it in the process. And um the attitude of engagement was a very big focus today because engagement is a very big focus now in the workplace, because there's been a 20-year decline in workforce engagement, which affects well-being, yeah, it affects mental health, and one of my main points is that the solutions to engage employees have been put in the laps of the employers. And some and some of these uh companies even have like chief well-being officers. And I think this is wonderful. The the attention to it and the awareness is fantastic. But my concept is hacking the rock star attitude is all about taking your power back and being able to do things yourself. So I talk about and give people very specific philosophies about how you can engage yourself because engagement means more fun, more fun means higher performance. Yeah. Engagement, more fun, more fun, higher performance. And I'm a rock and roller. We love to have fun, and everything we do is gauged on our performance. Everything in our lives is really gauged on our performance. So engagement is is um is key. It's just key.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

I completely you know, I I've done based on our performance.

SPEAKER_03 39:07

I'm engaged in our performance.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

But no, I I I completely agree. And some of the other corrugators that I've talked to at this show have been talking about, you know, one thing that they wish their customers knew was they should engage with them. Yeah. You know, reach out, really talk to your suppliers, talk to your customers, and get that engagement going. Um and to that point, you said something else in your um presentation that I thought was super uh applicable to our industry, and that is that active listening is full engagement. And the difference between r reacting to what someone says and responding to what someone says.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

Well, there's an order to that because reaction means you are literally sort of undermining your ability to actively listen. Because when you're reacting, you're playing old tapes, old thoughts, old prejudices, old um defenses, and it weakens your power in communication and causes others to become more reactive, you know, hence the chain reaction.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

Chain reaction.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

And um reacting means you're certainly not present. And so I talk about one quick solution for that is what I learned from neurocoach Heather Kreider that I work with. Um is the power of the pause, just by pausing for a moment and remembering what's the goal here. If the goal is to communicate, if the goal is to um eliminate conflict, is the goal and if the goal is to be present, and there's so much power in being able to assume somebody else's viewpoint. Yeah. So if you drop your reaction, you drop your anger, you drop your desire to be right, I talk about you want to be right, you want to be happy. Yeah. You want to be happy, and everybody wins. Right. And responding, on the other hand, means you are literally present, you're fully engaged, you're inventive, you're creative, and you're having a lot more fun. And look, case in point right here. I have been hanging out. I came to the event last night. I engaged with your crowd. Oh, yeah. I got to know people. I jammed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, played drums. I'm gonna go hang out in the Expo Center. I like to be engaged. The more engaged I am with people, the more fun I'm having. I get to know your crowd, I get to know the people, I get to know your industry. So engagement, you just everybody wins when you're engaged. Everybody wins. And it is about and you win the most. Yeah. And you also engage others.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

And that's where the innovation comes in. That's where um, you know, Creativity comes in. Creativity, so important when you're problem solving in an industry that's growing so fast that had to respond so quickly to something like COVID. And that's where the real winners in this industry were, the ones who could really engage and say, oh no, not just another problem we have to solve, right?

SPEAKER_03 42:02

It's that have to versus to get to, another one of the kind of attitude shifts you love to have-to's to get to is that it's such a simple reframe, and it is so, so powerful. And I use it all the time. Me too. You know, I talk about my favorites, you know, like I don't have to take my kid to school, I get to take my kid to school. I don't have to have a meeting with my team, I get to have a meeting with my team, or one of my own classic favorites I talked about. I don't have to go to the gym, I get to go to the gym.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

That would be a hard way.

SPEAKER_03 42:29

You know, you are certainly reframing it, and then the most mundane activities can become more fun. Right. And more engaging. Because you've you're you're re literally it's a different approach. Attitude and approach are synonymous. You're approaching it from a different mindset.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

Just so simple and so powerful.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

I you know, that reframe, you know, I think in in a corporate uh uh vendor supplier uh and plant relationship, just think of that reframe that goes from, uh, I have to talk to this cranky customer. Yeah. Because you know, they could just not call you. They could just cancel the order and go with somebody else. You get to talk to that cranky customer and make them happy.

SPEAKER_03 43:14

Well, and and also when you approach it with a get-to you, you become a lot more creative about how you can approach a situation. So, okay, you if you walk into it, like, okay, they're a cranky customer, I get to talk to them. So I get to find new and unique ways of reframing my communication. Yeah. And you get creative, it inspires you to be better. Yeah. To be a better being, to be more engaged, and all these concepts really do work if you apply them.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

I completely agree. I completely agree. Mark, what is one thing you want people to take away from when you give a presentation, high-energy presentation like you gave this morning, what's the one thing you hope folks take away?

SPEAKER_03 43:56

Well, in addition to all the things we just talked about, because I hope they take away all that stuff. I want people to realize that I believe that everybody has a little bit of this little inner rock star inside of them. And one of the concepts about rock stars is rock stars are known for living in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

And that's the concept of engagement. So, and that's what gives us a little bit of swagger. That's what gives us a little bit more playfulness. So take away the fact that you can be a little more like a rock star, you can be a little bit more playful, you can have a little bit of swagger in what you do. And I know that sounds funny, but again, it's your attitude, it's your viewpoint. If you decide, hey, I want to have more fun. I want to be a little bit more like a rock star, I want to have a little bit more swagger, a little more playfulness, a little bit more joy in what I do.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

Everybody can walk away with that. Um, just remembering that it is important to have fun. And you can have fun in nearly everything you do. You can certainly have more fun in just about everything you do.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

I love it. Mark Shulman, hey, check him out.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

His website is www.markshulman.com, M-A-R-K-S-C-H-U-L-M-A-N.com. And there you have it.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Yeah, get it right, folks, because you're going to want to hear more from Mark. Mark, thank you so much for being on Better Together. It was great.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

Awesome hanging with you today. Thank you. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

If Mark Schulman can't fire you up, you may just be unfire upable. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Better Together, recorded on site at Core Expo in Cleveland, Ohio. Check out the link on the landing page or just visit corexpo.org. That's C-O-R-R-E-X-P-O.org for some slideshows from the event, including scenes from the outstanding networking event at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You might see some colleagues or customers behind that jam room drum kit. Thank you for listening. Please share and subscribe to Better Together to keep the conversation going. And look for our next episode with four more interviews from Core Expo 2023.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Hello everyone, this is Larry Montague, president and CEO of Tappy, the pulp, paper, packaging, tissue, and converter industry's go to resource for news, industry trends, and technical and management information. We hope you enjoy today's Better Together podcast. And remember, there are two types of people in our industry Tappy members and those who should be. Have a great day.