American Box Company enjoys 50% productivity gains and reduces errors with WebCenter for Corrugated

The customer

American Box Company, Kansas, USA

Based in Shawnee, Kansas, American Box Company has been a leading corrugated converter for almost half a century. The company was founded as American Box & Tape Co. in 1975 by four former coworkers from General Box Co. They shared both a combined 46 years of packaging experience and a desire to become a leader in the independent corrugated market of Kansas City and the surrounding areas. They have worked hard to ensure American Box Company has been independently held and operated ever since.

Serving customers and employees through continued growth as well as expansion of knowledge and services, the business has established a strong, decades-long presence in the Midwest corrugated packaging market. Its design, manufacturing, and distribution facilities are centrally located in the Kansas City Metro Area, equipped with a diverse range of manufacturing capabilities along with structural and graphic design expertise.

From the early days, the American Box Company team dedicated themselves to providing superior customer service and reliability that was second to none. Because of the long-term dedication to these principles, the business has grown to be an important partner in the design and manufacturing of custom packaging, displays and packaging supplies to the regional market. American Box Company remains dedicated to its hardworking roots and to delivering what its customers need, when they need it.

The challenge

Managing a growing number of complex jobs

“One of the largest challenges for any organization is following a project from concept to completion,” said Vince Hayden, General Manager of American Box Company. “We were looking for a better method to track projects through their entire process and the myriad of changes that are possible during the life cycle.”

After investigating the latest innovations available in packaging management solutions, Vince and the American Box Company team opted to integrate WebCenter into the business.

“WebCenter solved the challenge for us,” he said. “We were already an Amtech software user so when the opportunity became available to synchronize the two platforms using Automation Engine and seamlessly integrate specification generation and CAD, we were on board. This created a seamless flow of projects for us.”

The solution

Complete digitized packaging management

WebCenter is a powerful packaging management and collaboration platform that allows for companies of all sizes to digitize their processes and meet today’s challenges head on. Web-based WebCenter for Corrugated has been tailored to help corrugated converters keep pace with the demands of a rapidly changing business environment.

Managing all aspects of preproduction specification, approval and project lifecycle to remove the most common bottlenecks in the packaging design to production process, WebCenter is the only solution on the market specifically developed for the packaging industry. The integrated approval process shows when an asset was sent for approval, who the approver is and when it is approved, before the software then automatically and seamlessly triggers the next tasks – and all in in real-time.

“With WebCenter, we can handle more large, complex files and fix errors in incoming files before we even start the prepress process,” said Vince. “We can also speed up the whole process, from estimates to orders and approval cycles. We can also handle a greater number of jobs, accurately and quickly.”

The benefits

Improved efficiency across departments

“With WebCenter integrated into our business, we are now able to enter new projects out in the field on a mobile device and have them flow through design, specification, quoting, graphics and order,” explained Vince.

“We have an 80% clearer picture of where projects are in the lifecycle just by looking at the integrated online dashboard. There’s no more losing projects at certain stages.

“The ability to have specs created automatically speeds up the process by well over 50%,” he said. “WebCenter has been a tremendous time saver and has improved our efficiency. It has greatly reduced the time required in customer service, design and graphics while reducing the number of production discrepancies.

“WebCenter has been a great investment for American Box Company, increasing and streamlining our processes while improving accuracy and saving time,” he said.