When strong retail sales ended in late 2000, America's retailers dealt with the slowdown in a variety of ways, including squeezing their suppliers for cost concessions.

Product manufactures responded by looking for ways to cut every possible dollar out of their product commercialization processes. One area targeted by U.S. Filter, manufacturer of the Culligan brand of water filters, was its product packaging. But because its products are sold in self-serve retail environments where attractive, high-impact cartons help increase product sales, the company was hesitant to sacrifice the print quality of its packaging for the sake of lower costs.

To solve the problem, U.S. Filter brainstormed with Sheboygan Paper Box Co., a converter just two blocks away from U.S. Filter's headquarters in Sheboygan, Wis. The companies decided to replace the mini-fluted board being used with Westvaco's Forte(tm), a new, 36-pt. solid-fiber board, which combines a bright-white coated facing stock with a kraft board. This would deliver significant overall cost savings, as well as offer superior graphic reproduction without washboarding and provide compression strength equal to or greater than F, G and N mini-flute board.

Production of Culligan cartons now begins with U.S. Filter supplying its artwork to Sheboygan on a disk. Sheboygan makes film and proofs color for the packaging graphics, then sheets Forte in preparation for printing.

The Forte sheets are printed on a seven-color, 56-in. KBA Rapida model 142-7 sheet-fed offset press at 6,500 sheets/hr. Solvent-based inks supplied by Kohl & Madden are used for the four-color process with a special 5^th, which is the Culligan corporate color. Diecutting is performed at 5,000 sheets/hr. on a flatbed Bobst Super Autoplatens 142-CER diecutter. A Bobst Domino 110-M II is then used to fold and glue the cartons at 5,000 sheets/hr.

Sheboygan packages the flat cartons in corrugated cases and trucks them to U.S. Filter facilities, where they are hand erected and filled.

Throughout the production process, Forte performs comparably to the clay-coated bleached board with which Sheboygan is accustomed. "Once you learn how to work with it, Forte is just as easy to handle as an ordinary paperboard and a lot easier to handle than mini-flute," says John Hanson, Sheboygan's industrial engineering manager. "We can increase our run speeds, because we don't have to worry about thickness, and it doesn't crush during diecutting or gluing like mini-lam can."

According to Sheboygan's director of sales and marketing David Moga, "The printing surface is wonderful. It allows you to achieve superior graphics, because of its top sheet, and gives you the durability that you normally don't get in thinner caliper paperboard."

Moga says that its customers are starting to take notice of the product: "We use the U.S. Filter cartons as sales tools, and customers ask a lot of questions about them," he says. "They see the quality of the printed pieces we've already done, and it's easy to get them excited about the board. It drives their imagination, and they want to know, 'How can I use this board to enhance my product?' It gives us a real edge in the marketplace."