Closing the Gap

A sales rep quotes a job. Production runs it. The margin evaporates somewhere in between.

It’s a familiar story in packaging and label converting — and as run lengths shorten and SKU counts climb, the cost of that disconnect is rising. The culprit is rarely bad intention. It’s a structural gap between the people who price the work and the people who execute it — two groups operating from different realities, speaking different languages, and separated by the distance between carpet and cement.

A growing number of converters are deciding that distance is no longer acceptable.

The concept has a name in the industry: “carpet to cement and cement to carpet.” The phrase is simple. The operational challenge it describes is not, but the principle is straightforward: When office teams understand manufacturing realities and plant-floor employees understand business drivers, margins stop disappearing between the quote and the job.

Aligning Strategy With Reality

For this sort of alignment to be successful, it needs to start at the leadership level — and everyone must be on board.

“From a leadership perspective, the biggest challenge is managing complexity while maintaining efficiency,” says James Chuang, president and CEO of Montebello, California-based Sunshine Flexible Packaging Co. “Flexible packaging today involves a wide range of substrates, structures, and performance requirements, and each department in the plant has its own technical considerations.”

That complexity creates risk, especially when commercial teams lack visibility into the realities of production.

“If the commercial side doesn’t understand what production needs to run efficiently, it becomes very difficult to set realistic expectations with customers,” Chuang explains. “For instance, at Sunshine, cross-functional understanding is built into how teams operate. Sales, estimating, and project management staff are expected to understand the fundamentals of extrusion, printing, lamination, slitting, and converting. That knowledge ensures that the information entering production is clear, accurate, and actionable.”

The operational payoff, Chuang says, is measurable.

“When teams understand how their decisions affect the next department in the process, you naturally see less waste, fewer production adjustments, and smoother handoffs,” Chuang says. “It creates a much more stable manufacturing environment.”

Where Disconnects Happen

Even so, disconnects between what customers request, what sales promises, and what production can deliver remain common across the industry.

Craig Tait, chief product officer of eProductivity Software, notes that those gaps often originate in the estimating process.

“The most common disconnect is between how a job is priced and how it actually performs in production,” Tait says. “Commercial teams are focused on winning business, while production teams are focused on delivering that work efficiently within real-world constraints.”

So, when estimates are based on assumptions that don’t reflect operational realities, such as setup times, run speeds, or material behavior, profitability can decline quickly.

“Without a feedback loop from production, what looks like margin on paper can quickly disappear on the shop floor,” Tait says.

In flexible packaging, those challenges are amplified by technical complexity. Chuang points to scenarios where brand owners request specific barrier properties or visual effects without fully understanding the downstream impact.

“A specific substrate or coating may achieve the desired performance but require specialized equipment and tight process control,” he says. “If those details aren’t worked out early and communicated clearly, it can create challenges later in scheduling or execution.”

Data as a Bridge Between Teams

Data is now doing what org charts couldn’t: creating a shared operational reality across departments.

For instance, Tait explains that MIS and ERP systems are increasingly being used to create a shared view of operations across departments.

“When estimating is informed by actual production performance, live capacity, and scheduling constraints, quoting becomes far more accurate,” he says. “At the same time, production teams gain visibility into what has been promised commercially.”

That integration is no longer optional as packaging workflows become more complex, with hybrid analog/digital environments and shorter, higher-mix runs.

“As the number of decision points and handoffs increases, shared understanding becomes essential,” Tait says. “Without it, complexity leads to inefficiency, delays, and margin loss. With it, complexity becomes a competitive advantage.”

Converters that leverage production and costing data to educate commercial teams are already seeing results.

“Customers report improvements in quoting accuracy, waste reduction, and scheduling efficiency,” Tait notes. “Ultimately, it leads to more consistent margins and reduced internal friction.”

Cross-Training in Action

The industry is seeing more and more large converters investing in systems and processes to improve alignment, with smaller and mid-sized companies now demonstrating how cross-training can work in practice as well.

For example, at New York Custom Labels, CEO Myles Schepetin notes the approach was born out of necessity.

“When I first joined the company as a sales representative, I had blind spots that negatively impacted my ability to avoid problems,” he says. “That changed after spending time on the factory floor. I flew to India and spent two weeks shadowing our production manager. It was an eye-opener. Since then, we’ve built factory tours into training for all new sales reps so they understand how the process works.”

That hands-on experience has completely changed how the Woodstock, New York, company operates. Instead of vague feedback, sales staff now communicate using production-specific terminology, referencing thread books and machine constraints. They can also explain technical limitations to customers with confidence.

“Sometimes a customer doesn’t understand why their design can’t be reproduced,” Schepetin says. “Now our team can explain exactly how the design translates into the loom software and what the limitations are.”

The impact extends to production as well.

“Our production manager has a direct line of communication with the sales rep assigned to each order,” Schepetin says. “If anything is unclear, they can resolve it immediately because both sides understand the process.”

That level of coordination is particularly critical for short-run, time-sensitive jobs.

“For rush orders, our sales and production teams can collaborate in real time to solve issues and keep the job moving,” Schepetin says.

Building Workforce Agility

At Box Genie, a Kansas City, Missouri-based custom packaging manufacturer focused on e-commerce and subscription packaging, cross-training has become a foundational strategy for managing growth and complexity.

“Our rapid growth was the primary driver,” says Lauren Davis, senior marketing director. “We needed our front-office team to understand the full production life cycle to keep pace with demand.”

The company now trains sales and customer-facing staff on print and cutting methods, enabling them to guide customers toward the most efficient production approaches.

“That deeper technical understanding allows them to provide more accurate quotes, realistic timelines, and tailored shipping recommendations,” Davis says.

Box Genie has also introduced hybrid roles that bridge multiple functions, including scheduling, customer service, and production.

“This role has visibility into every part of our operation,” Davis explains. “They can disseminate information in real time, keeping teams aligned and enabling faster, more proactive communication with customers.”

Those structural changes have reshaped how the company measures performance.

“We’ve reduced quoting errors and are turning orders around faster than ever,” she says. “Cross-training has also improved labor flexibility, especially when covering staffing gaps.”

As customization and speed continue to define the market, Davis believes cross-functional workforce models will become standard.

“It’s less about individuals wearing many hats and more about teams contributing collectively to a shared goal,” she says.

A Cultural Shift

Industry insiders agree that cross-training is not just a tactical initiative but represents a broader cultural shift within packaging organizations.

“With shorter runs, higher SKU counts, and more specialized packaging structures, decision-making needs to happen faster,” Chuang says. “Employees who understand both the business objectives and the technical realities are better equipped to respond.”

Specialized expertise will always remain critical; however, the most effective organizations will be those that combine deep technical knowledge with broader operational awareness.

“Cross-trained teams improve communication, reduce bottlenecks, and make it easier to adapt when production demands shift,” Chuang says.

The Competitive Advantage of Organizational Fluency

As converters continue to invest in automation, equipment, and workflow integration, the realization that technology alone is not enough is hitting home.

Tait believes the next competitive differentiator could be organizational fluency, which he describes as the ability for teams across the business to operate with a shared understanding of both commercial and production realities.

“The objective is to create fully integrated organizations where pricing, planning, and production operate from the same reality,” he says. “That’s how you ensure decisions made in the office are aligned with execution on the factory floor.”

For converters that make the shift, Tait says the payoff is an organization where pricing, planning, and production operate in the same reality — and where decisions made in the office actually hold up on the factory floor.

For those that don’t, the gap between what’s quoted and what’s delivered will keep costing them. The math only gets harder from here.