Vandalia, OH (USA), February 14, 2006 – Esko, the market leader in packaging pre-production solutions, announces that Geneva, Ohio-based Third Dimension has purchased its second Kongsberg DCM dieless cutting table to keep up with the demand of quick turnaround short-run Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing. Third Dimension’s 60 employees provide specialty-packaging services to converters. Their main focus is molding of Styrofoam and plastics profiles for packaging. However, the company also provides custom boxes for its clients—typically short-run JIT shipments. “Once the design has been created, we’re like a stop-gap for the production run. If the customer has to get delivery today, we help make it happen,” comments Jeanette DeJesus, Third Dimension president. “For example, when the customer is involved in a test market, instead of ordering a cutting die, we can cost-effectively send 400-500 samples right away. A four hour lead-time has become the rule; not the exception.” The Kongsberg DCM is based on the successful Kongsberg XL series of cutting and creasing tables for packaging applications. It automatically loads sheets from a stack of material up to 24” thick, cuts and creases each sheet from a CAD file, and unloads the sheets – running virtually unattended. No cutting die is required, generating further savings in cost and turnaround time. Producing small runs for different sizes of 10 to 400 sheets very profitably, the Kongsberg DCM can pay for itself within a two to three year period. Before they purchased their first Kongsberg DCM, Third Dimension owned a CAM sample table, but it required a good deal of hands-on attention. One of their major customers also owned a CAM table. Unfortunately, rather than being used for samplemaking, the customer was occupying the table’s time to produce short emergency runs. Third Dimension started accepting short run work. As they did it more and more, they created a niche for themselves in the market by delivering profitable value to their customers. As business increased, they needed something more automated. They purchased their first Kongsberg DCM to save on manpower. Whereas one person can run a number of DCMs at the same time, the CAM sample table had to be continually manned. Fifteen months later, as business and Third Dimension’s customer base continued to grow, they realized they needed more capacity from a second machine. A second DCM made business sense because of productivity as well as the better data interface with their customers. A healthy share of Third Dimension’s clients use Esko’s ArtiosCAD software to create structural designs, and the file format is easier to import into the Kongsberg DCM. To DeJesus, because the ROI for the first DCM had justified itself within 15 months, the decision to buy another one was easy to make. “The quality coming off the DCM is very superior—better than a traditional box machine. Products are clean, with no crush,” remarks DeJesus. “It’s faster than our other CAM table because it doesn’t have to be manned. The DCM doesn’t require dialing in work orders—like inputting the size of every job that comes through. And, someone has to feed each sheet on the other table. With the DCM all we have to do is download all the orders and cycle them in. The automatic feed loads and unloads the material on the machine, without requiring labor. I get a lot of people saying that it’s just a CAM table. Well, it’s not. It’s a production machine that works 24-7.” Much of Third Dimension’s packaging business is JIT. As the industry consolidates to major converters, there’s a greater possibility that a line might go down. Under those circumstances, the only way to deliver product is with digital cutting technology. “Everything we do is special and out of the ordinary. We can run ten, or 300 to 400 items with a two-hour notice. We just download a file in a few minutes and we can deliver product in a couple of hours. We can’t imagine doing this work with any other machine,” summarizes DeJesus. “With our two DCMs, we can produce 120 boxes per hour or, with three full shifts, 3,000 short run boxes per day. You can also use it to feed printed stock for test or short run displays. If you’re looking for a product that provides a quick turnaround on a high quality product with little labor, the Kongsberg DCM is the way to go. In fact, we intend to buy another one this year for our West Jordan facility, just outside of Salt Lake City.”