Lofton Label's Key to Success is Being Smart, Tough and Nimble

When you're a small guy playing in the big leagues you need to be smart, tough, and nimble. You won't win many battles—or much business—by slugging it out toe-to-toe with one of the big guys.

Lofton Label supplies labels, flexible packaging, films, coupons, and labeling equipment to major corporate customers. Key to the company's success is what CEO Mike Lane believes works well for smaller converters: delivering a wide range of capabilities and exceptional customer service. "We bring real value to our customers and get a fair return in the process," says Lane.

Wide market reach

Lofton's customers span food, beverage and spirits, medical, pharmaceuticals, cosmetic, pet care/animal health, household products, industrial chemicals, dairy, vitamins and nutraceuticals, and health and beauty. Lane counts general manufacturing—especially segments with high SKU counts—industrial chemicals, and animal health as the leading markets for his company.

Building benchmarks

When Lane joined the company in the middle of 2010 Lofton was working its way through the economic downturn and its founders were preparing to turn over day-to-day operation to new leadership. In coming on board Lane knew the company had established a solid formula for success but thought it needed to identify and quantify exactly what was important. "We lacked good benchmarks to measure our competitive performance," he relates. "Those insights can show where you may be out of line, so we've been establishing and refining a variety of benchmarks across the company."

Lane initiated a plan focusing on five elements: costs, capacity, structure, performance reviews, and strategy. Lofton had recently lost some business, so Lane established benchmarking standards to determine where cost reductions were required. The next step was seeing what existing capacity could be used to generate revenue without any capital investment. Finally, he streamlined the organization by removing a layer of management and instituted performance reviews with specific objectives for all employees. This both enhanced communication within the company and gave employees a greater voice in the business.

The Brand Promise

The basis for the performance reviews came from a Strategic Brand Platform developed to establish the company brand and business philosophy, which Lane says are the focal points for all employees. Three key elements include:

• Brand Promise: We promise unsurpassed customer service and exceptional results on labels, packaging films, and labeling equipment.
• Brand Essence: Commitment
• Values: Integrity, Reliability, Quality, Professionalism, Respect, Flexibility, Loyalty, Safety

"All employees are trained in their roles relative to the platform so they understand our values and where they fit in," explains Lane. "We train annually and reinforce quarterly."

Expanding capabilities

"For small companies with limited resources, remaining relevant and competitive requires well-thought-out investment decisions," says Lane. "We're continually looking at technology opportunities."

Such opportunities—along with Lofton's commitment to customer needs—were behind the decision to add digital printing in 2010 in the form of a HP Indigo WS6000 digital press. The company considered other digital presses, but decided on the Indigo partly because it had the largest market share at the time. "At 13 inches wide, it provided a flexible platform for label output that would meet our customer commitments," relates Lane.

"Digital printing is a developing technology that is important to our clients," says Lane. "It offers benefits that are critical in a dynamic, competitive marketplace: faster time to market, reduced costs [no plates, dies, etc.], enhanced graphic capability, and less inventory to help control product obsolescence." Difficult economic conditions and margin pressures in 2010 also played a role in the decision to add digital printing and Lofton Label was fortunate in being able to make the investment.

All of the company's operators are certified to run the Indigo and can handle the majority of the technical maintenance. "Relying on one [digital] press for several years did make us a bit nervous," admits Lane. "But, we had contingency plans in place and now we have a second press."

That machine, installed earlier this year, is a HP Indigo WS6600 with an inline priming unit that pre-treats the substrate to better accept the ink being used. Previously, Lofton Label met the requirement for treated stocks with both external sourcing and in-house coating. The inline priming capability of the WS6600 provides further flexibility in substrate selection.

The fast turnaround and short-run capability of digital printing can sometimes strain prepress and post-press operations because of the increased number of jobs being run. At Lofton Label, however, digital printing came online without any serious bottlenecks. The company had an existing ERP system that could handle the increased information requirements driven by the fast turnarounds of digital printing. This system was further enhanced by conversion to an EFI Radius ERP solution in 2012.

Mixing flexo and digital

Supplying printed materials from both flexo and digital presses means a converter must have access to material that meets customers' expectations no matter which press is used. "The flexibility to move between digital and flexo is important to maximize customer satisfaction," says Lane. Press vendors have been ready with support.

Lane is quick to point out that flexo press manufacturers have done a great job in designing new presses for quick turnovers and fast makereadies, so whether to run flexo or digital is not necessarily a straight-forward decision. "Lots of factors go into determining what is a good run length for our digital presses," he says. "Typically, we average about 5,000 feet on a digital press run, with the cost-curve crossover point about 15,000 feet. Saying this, however, we've done digital runs of 100,000 feet to meet the particular needs of some customers."

Lofton Label can run up to seven colors on its HP Indigo presses. It generally runs CMYK with orange and white (for opacity) and can hit 93 percent of PMS colors with this combination. By adding violet, this rises to 97 percent. "One of our customers has some pretty difficult spot colors," notes Lane. "HP can work with us to actually supply these colors, but everyone involved recognizes that makeready time will increase when using that option." Lane believes that part of its commitment to its customers is in working closely with them so they can understand the gives, takes and costs of the total quality picture. "If we can provide a delta E of 2.5 (versus 2.0) and provide an economic benefit to our customers, that's what we will offer for consideration. Then the customer can choose."

Looking ahead

The decision to add digital printing was driven not only by the markets the company was competing in, but also by its mantra to provide capabilities with a relentless commitment to customer service. Digital printing can meet the needs of fast-moving consumer segments with high numbers of SKUs—exactly the markets that Lofton Label is focused on.

Two of the standards in Lofton Label's Brand Platform are leveraging technology to deliver labeling solutions, and striving for long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. With its digital presses and state-of-the-art flexo presses, the company has the tools it needs to meet the challenges ahead. pP