FREMONT, California - Electronics For Imaging, Inc. today reported that Hub Folding Box Co. has chosen the EFI™ Packaging Suite – which features Radius® ERP software as its core ERP technology – to be its next-generation workflow solution.
 
The new workflow upgrade is an investment for future growth for the Mansfield, Massachusetts-based company, a third-generation family business founded in 1918. Hub Folding Box is replacing a largely homegrown solution that has been in place for nearly two decades.
 
Reducing touches for faster, more-efficient customer service
 
“Our growth over the last century has been driven by our belief in coming up with new packaging ideas that help our customers sell their products,” said Hub Folding Box President and CEO Anthony DiRico. “Without that as part of our DNA, we probably wouldn’t still be here. The EFI Packaging Suite will help us reduce touches throughout the operation, including the ability to acquire data directly from the shop floor. It gives us access to data that will help us make better decisions and improve our ability to service customers, providing faster, more cost-efficient throughput.”
 
The EFI Packaging Suite provides end-to-end certified workflows that contribute to profitability by increasing automation and production efficiencies. It consists of a range of certified workflows with integrated components from EFI’s industry-leading portfolio and key third-party technologies, such as Esko’s Automation Engine. Hub Folding Box already relies on EFI technology in prepress as a long-time user of EFI Fiery® software for color management in its digital inkjet proofing system.
 
When the full Suite is installed later this year, Hub Folding Box will benefit from an advanced workflow featuring new shop-floor data collection offerings and robust business intelligence tools to help the company make informed, proactive decisions. The new workflow also features sophisticated, award-winning mobile customer relationship management tools that will help sales staff identify new opportunities and improve customer service. Plus, integrated shipping and web portal components will streamline ordering and delivery.
 
A new workflow to expand a heritage of innovation
 
The advanced production workflow with the Suite is another development in a long history of innovation at the Hub Folding Box, a business that originally catered to eastern Massachusetts dry cleaners and tailor shops. The first great innovation of Hub Folding Box’s founder, Francesco DiRico, came in the early 1930s when the company invented a process to put windows in tomato boxes using a newly created material, cellophane. This heralded a major change in packaging, as it gave consumers the ability to view the products they were purchasing. Hub Folding Box also designed the first waxed paperboard carton for institutional frozen fish, which replaced heavy wooden crates used previously. Today, the company specializes in printing and converting high-end paperboard and plastic folding cartons, and corrugated solutions.
 
“As we approach our 100th anniversary next year, it is a good time to both look back and look ahead,” said Anthony DiRico, who is the grandson of the company’s founder. “We are very proud of our heritage of innovation and were seeking a partner who is also dedicated to innovation to take us into the next century of operation. We had outgrown our existing systems, and EFI was the logical choice to position us for productivity and profitability in the future.”