(June 25, 2008) The North American Packaging Association (N.A.P.A) awards ceremony, held earlier this year in Acapulco, Mexico, revealed that for the third consecutive year Utah Paperbox won the best in folding carton or rigid category.  The Keyser family operation, headed by third generation owner Paul Keyser, has long relied on manroland presses to get the job done.  In this case, a RO-LAND 707 Ultima is helping the company separate itself from the competi-tion.

N.A.P.A. is a group of 57 independent box makers and the awards ceremony raised Utah Paperbox to reach a new level of prestige.  The company walked away with 33 of the 134 awards handed out, including 10 of the 29 Gold honors.  That's an amazing accomplishment for the family oriented business, which boasts many second generation workers.  Originally a rigid box business for five decades after opening in 1914, the emphasis shifted to folding cartons and offset printing fol-lowed in the 1970s.  Folding cartons represent about 85 percent of their business.

Untraditional methods score incredible results

According to Mike Salazar, VP of Operations and a 17-year veteran at Utah Pa-perbox, the company has enjoyed tremendous success with manroland.  Having the ability to customize their ROLAND 707 Ultima has made a huge difference in their business the last few years. They also have ROLAND 700 and ROLAND 900 series presses.

"We have a special kind of configuration that allows us to bring one pass solutions to the marketplace," Salazar said.  "These solutions include printing special effects on the packaging, in addition to being in the position to offer competitive pricing to the board printing world because of the uniqueness of our press.

"By modifying the 707 Ultima it gives our sales force something extra to bring to the packaging world, and it also sets us apart from others in the marketplace. We moved some of the coaters, drying and print units and also created some untradi-tional drying units that help us with the one pass process."

Creating win-win situations

Having the Ultima 707 press gives Utah Paperbox many different options. They have used it for smaller, 5,000 run lengths, and for 50,000 run, multiple-up jobs.

"We provide millions of cartons to one of our customers every year, which is an in-teresting story," Salazar said.  "They are quite happy with their standard boxes, but we were able to work with their artist to take advantage of our new press.  They have increased their market share and are happy with the price we quote them for the work, so it's a win-win situation for both of us."

Salazar said the willingness to experiment and invest in newer technology and methods is one of the reasons why Utah Paperbox continues to grow and achieve success.

"We've done a lot of things in the last 18 months, including bringing all of our ink mixing in-house," Salazar said.  "We experimented with the interaction between coatings and inks and how they react on different, and even difficult, substrates.  We also created some different pigments and unique blends that none of our com-petitors have. The ROLAND presses give us different printing techniques since we have developed something more than your conventional solutions when it comes to glosses."