Vacumet Corp., Metallized Paper Division, Morristown, Tenn., tightened the standards and controls for its demanding coating and metallizing process, boosted its productivity and improved sales of its high-value coated-one-side (C1S) label paper products by tapping into the resources of Westvaco Corp.'s Fine Papers Division.

Vacumet manufactures metallized paper for a very diverse and demanding customer base of printers and converters. Its metallizing process requires the use of substrates that can perform consistently through a series of coating and metallizing steps.

Vacumet subjects C1S paper to pre-coating, vacuum metallizing, top-coating, rewinding, slitting, embossing and sheeting before shipping these complex metallized papers to printers for additional press techniques and finishing through gravure, offset or flexographic processes. The C1S label paper substrate it uses must be free of surface imperfections, remain stable through the process and exhibit low reactivity to moisture, so it runs flat without curl or wavy edges. Inconsistent paper had previously undermined the productivity of its process and generated significant customer complaints and rejections.

According to Mark McGarel, Vacumet vice president of sales, key to its success was the shift to a value focus, with stringent standards for product consistency and quality across the board.

"We decided we needed to revise the quality standards of our whole process and embark on finding a paper company that could develop a product that would give us the performance we required," says McGarel. "At the time, there wasn't one product in the marketplace that was consistent enough for our needs," McGarel says. So Vacumet turned to Westvaco.

"We knew Sterling® Litho C1S paper was the industry standard for a broad range of label applications, and Westvaco had developed technical papers for a variety of specialized markets," McGarel says. "Westvaco had the quality resources, capabilities, initiative and responsiveness we needed to get the job done. And they accepted the challenge."

The two companies joined forces and focused the efforts of their technology experts, paper scientists, coatings specialists and quality control engineers to develop a product that provided the consistency, runnability, line speeds, labeling characteristics and surface smoothness Vacumet required.

As a result of this value focus and Westvaco's participation, Vacumet has been able to increase its sales and boost market share, which is currently at 65 percent.

"We can now pursue and secure new business more easily, even for our customers' most technical demands," says McGarel. "Operationally, taking on difficult challenges is not a concern, and tests on brand new applications run remarkably well.

"By understanding our requirements and having the resources and desire to act on them, Westvaco provides us more value so we can provide our customers more value in an increasingly competitive marketplace," he says.