Miamisburg, OH – York Container, a leading end-to-end packaging supplier, is using EskoArtwork’s ArtiosCAD structural design software to boost productivity and reduce revisions during the design review cycle.

Established in 1954, York Container is a single source supplier of corrugated shipping containers, retail packaging and POP displays.  With advanced tools and a staff of nearly 200, York offers complete solutions through the entire packaging production workflow, from providing raw materials and structural solutions to creative graphic design and in-line production of printing, die-cutting, coating, folding, and gluing.

York’s varied customer base, including premier automotive, snack food, and pharmaceutical companies, require a wide range of packaging to move their products. ArtiosCAD’s parametrics plays a key role in helping Troy Little, Director of Design, deliver products to its customers on a timely basis. “Parametrics allows us to automatically resize designs, quickly and efficiently,” says Little. “If you have an existing drawing, and want the same dimensions but 20% larger, ArtiosCAD can do it very quickly. Or, let’s say the original design was created in B flute, but after doing some compression testing we change it to C flute. Instead of redesigning the packaging allowances in the different flute, ArtiosCAD automatically resizes the scoring allowances. Our previous system couldn’t redesign anything easily. The design either had to be redrawn or manipulated manually.”

ArtiosCAD lets designers make “changes in seconds and return the designs to the CAD table, so that we can cut samples,” says Little. “It takes the workload off the designer; the system does the work for us.”

Job specifications with customer style requirements are added to the ArtiosCAD Standards Catalog, further speeding production and time to market.  “We have specific criteria that we want to see in our designs—criteria that fits our customers’ equipment, for example,” explains Little. “Once we have a drawing set up as a standard, no matter which of our designers works on any particular job, the style will always be consistent going into production.”

Once changes are applied globally to a standard, all drawings generated to that style will reflect the newer style, with all the revisions.

Reducing revisions travels all the way through York’s relationship with its customers. ”If we had to keep making revisions, our salespeople would have to go back and forth to the customer, scheduling meetings, showing samples, and waiting for customer responses. That can really cause delays,” says Little. “In most cases we can go to order after creating just one sample — really speeding time to market. Being able to get a design approved on first shot increases our value to customer. We’re finding that our customers will often return to us with new jobs, rather than experimenting with new vendors who might not have tested delivery track records.”

ArtiosCAD’s 3D capabilities also help drive production. “We create 3D drawings for instruction sheets for more complicated displays,” explains Little. “Before we had this capability, we had to take a photo of the display, then trace over the photo so it would accurately depict the display. What used to take several days now gets done in a few hours.“

York uses HRMS business management system software, and it connects easily to ArtiosCAD through EskoArtwork’s SpecLink. “A hard copy HRMS work order accompanies every job throughout the facility. Every work order must be accompanied by a drawing of the packaging—the drawing cannot be on a separate attachment,” describes Little. “Our preprogrammed product codes are sent from HRMS through SpecLink to ArtiosCAD. If ArtiosCAD receives a code it recognizes, it automatically knows what to draw.  If not — for instance, for a new product — a designer creates a new drawing. That illustration is sent electronically from ArtiosCAD to the HRMS system, so that HRMS system can reproduce it.”

The bottom line for York? With ArtiosCAD, “it doesn’t matter who the packaging is being manufactured for, or which fulfillment line the customer will use it for,” says Little. “It cuts down on revisions and increases speed to market. We get into production much faster.”