The consolidation of retailing has provided opportunity for nimble, customer-oriented converters," says Bob Cole. "I believe there will always be a market for converters fitting this profile."

As president and chief executive officer of Charlotte, NC-based J.R. Cole Industries, Inc., Cole and his staff have certainly taken advantage of that and other opportunities to expand business into new products and new markets. The company's two most recent equipment installations—a Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 102 sheetfed-offet press and a Multi Print Systems servo-driven label press—demonstrate its drive to offer a combination of agile production processes.

A converter of pressure-sensitive labels and folding cartons, J.R. Cole is the parent company to four converting operations: Southern Converters, Inc., Labeltec, Inc., Pharmaprint, Inc., and Carolina Prepress, Inc. All are located within a 10-mile radius.

The flagship folding-carton division, Southern Converters, was founded in 1979. The Labeltec roll-label and insert subsidiary was formed in 1982 to serve growing demand from existing carton customers for color-matched p-s labels. Ten years later, J.R. Cole spun off Pharmaprint to convert pharmaceutical roll labels and inserts. Launched in 1987, Carolina Prepress crafts artwork and plates for its sister companies, as well as for some non-competitive converters.

J.R. Cole's customer base across North America includes packagers of HBA, healthcare, household-care, wine/spirits and consumer-electronics products. This long list of Fortune 500 businesses employs the converter's flexographic, offset, rotary screen and rotary letterpress printing, embossing/stamping, diecutting and folding/gluing services.

"We serve the high-end customers of various markets," says Joe Richards, vice president of sales. "The cliché of being 'a one-stop shop' is true at J.R. Cole. We will handle today's demands for shorter runs, and even manage inventory for customers."

"While we do provide a broad range of services, we don't serve all markets," adds Larry Long, vice president of manufacturing. "That can hurt your business in the process. We get to know our customers requirements very well in certain markets and make the best product possible."

One way of achieving that goal is the new Heidelberg press (www.heidelberg.com) installed at the Southern Converters plant last March. The 40-in., 6-color plus coater system is expected to help shorten job make-ready time and speed changeovers with its automatic inking unit, ink cartridges, automatic plate hangers and rapid registration. Although J.R. Cole currently uses only water-based coating on the press, each print inter-deck dryer is pre-wired for UV curing.

"It's an excellent piece of equipment," says Southern Converters general manager Lee Swope, who goes on to say that although the company has state-of-the-art equipment, that's not necessarily what makes J.R. Cole special. "Our responsiveness to customers is our strong suit. When they put an order in, they want it turned and shipped in 10 days; sometimes even less in the label division. We can handle it because we interface with them beforehand and make sure we have everything to produce that order."

Downstream cartonmaking units include two Bobst (www.bobstgroup.com) BMA hot-stamper/embossers, two Bobst 104 ER diecutter/blankers, two Bobst Domino 90 folder/gluers, and a new American Intl. Machinery Signature folder/gluer (www.aim-inc.net).

To support the label side, J.R. Cole also added a new 16-in., 8-color press from Multi Print Systems (www.mps4u.com) at the Labeltec facility last spring. Manufactured by MPS in The Netherlands, the completely servo-driven equipment features interchangeable print stations with a combination of UV-flexo and rotary-screen printing. It handles substrates from 1-mil unsupported films to 20-pt paperboard, as well as running shrink-sleeve materials.

"Changeover between screen and flexo takes only minutes," says Darrell Somerville, label operations manager. "The servos cut waste to only 200 ft of material, and once registration is set, there's no manual adjustment."

The latest addition to J.R. Cole's arsenal installed in September—a 16-in. KOR Engineering VR inspection slitter/rewinder (www.korengineering.com)—is stationed in its Pharma-print plant. Fitted with an AVT (www.avt-inc.com) digital defect-detection system, the unit also uses up to four Domino A400 inkjet printheads to sequentially number the back of pharmaceutical labels.

Capital investments have lately been coming fast and frequently at J.R. Cole, but that's also one of its strengths, says Dave Harris, technical manager of label operations. "What's unique to our management is that we don't have a lot of levels to act as a stumbling block to progress," he says. "It's given us the freedom to make commitments and live up to them."

That's exactly what is needed in today's converting business, adds Bob Cole. "The roll-label business is as wide open as it was 40 years ago," he says. "The upper end of the market requires increasingly expensive presses and finishing equipment. Only the well-financed will make it over the next few years, and we certainly intend to be there for today's customers, and those we will be serving in the future."

For an expanded version of this article, go to www.converting magazine.com