Fantastic Plastic

Owen Embling reaches into a cupboard and pulls out a cheap printed plastic bag, the type used by discount retailers everywhere."Five years ago this is what we were producing. Single colour bags and a lot of plain simple work. It was all sold through distributors and we couldn't control who we sold to, or the price, or compete against the imported product.

So we dragged the whole staff kicking and screaming up through the steps. They said they didn't need to know this stuff. But we developed reporting systems, TQM, non-conformance standards and so on. "Our existing manager did a degree, another did an NZCE, we had always been strong in apprentice training, but we also started taking on graduates."

It is a fascinating story, this growth by Convex Plastics from being a jobbing printer on plastic to the company which has just won a major printing industry award and has its vision set on being one of the best plastic printing companies in the world.

Along the way Convex has taken its already flat structure and flattened it some more, developing a team based workplace where innovation is the rule and there is always budget available for product development projects.

The plant runs 3 shifts, 24 hours, and is this year investing $4 million on new plant, double last year's amount. "That's based on what people are saying they need to get better results. We need to improve the quality to picture postcard perfect." At that end of the market, the business is skilled, labour intensive, and not so price competitive. Quality, innovation and service are the keys.

Two years ago Convex saw a market opportunity and began working with an Auckland graphic art house to develop the process of continuous printing, the end result of which won them this year's Pride in Print award. It allows graphic images to be constantly repeated with no visible join in the pattern.

"Just Juice were an existing client for whom we were doing one and two colour work. They wanted to see a mass of fruit as a single image. We might have been spending $6000 getting the image right but there were still visible joins between patterns." This part of the business was then very small, and it still accounts for only 10%, but it includes brands such as Coca Cola, DB, and Just Juice. It is world-class printing technology.

Convex has three distinct parts to its business: extrusion (making various kinds of plastic), printing, and conversion (processing the printed plastic into product). Each is a separate area of specialist skill, but innovation projects draw together teams with the combined expertise to push the boundaries. It is a fluid process, with projects picked up, and often dropped if success remains elusive for long. "We take the view that if a product remains the same for a year we need to change it, because someone else is almost certainly working on it too," Embling said.

The team driven approach is almost total. There is, for example, no head of r&d. Embling said he only becomes involved in decisions when teams want to spend a lot of money.

Late last year three from the company toured European suppliers and technology companies are now presenting proposals for a multi-million dollar 8 colour printing press planned for 18 months' time. Among the total staff of 85 is a large pool of qualified people. The company actively supports and promotes from within, and skills are valued. Embling says, with apparent bemusement, that Convex even has geoscientists among its ranks.

"We recognised that we need to uplift the skill base. We put aside training money each year for people to do courses, but we expect them to identify the training and courses - it's more important that they see the need for the training. Paying for the course is the smaller part of the equation -they have to buy into it. It's worked well."

So Convex is working overtime to make its crew better qualified and technologically smarter. Production is growing about 25% a year and profitability at about the same rate. But Embling says it could do better. "We are still being hamstrung by our inability to bring people on board. We can spend the money but we can't drag the people into the business fast enough. We offer them anything they need to develop themselves."

There have been some notable successes, though. One staff member is completing a PhD in Chemistry, after joining Convex unskilled five years ago. And the company's conversion manager began as a general hand. Three years ago qualified food technologists were brought in when Convex moved into food packaging, but that was unusual. Embling says the philosophy of training its own people holds up the company's growth and is more expensive, but it also builds a stronger team and gets better results long term.

"I see people in the industry move because they see better opportunities somewhere else. But often they aren't given those opportunities." Convex, meanwhile, is picking up on a few opportunities itself. The next step is into markets where it couldn't previously compete: first laminated printed plastic bags for dogfood. Until now, dry dogfood has been packaged in laminated paper sacks and Embling says the potential market is very big. To achieve that, the company's laboratory programme went through a $120,000 upgrade, and it is about to double again to tackle food technology projects.

"Dogfood packaging was a nice entry into food packaging. There is a huge difference between the technology - for dogfood we use three layers of plastic; for food we use six, and each layer has specific qualities - odour protection, toughness, taint protection and so on." A plastic bag for food is never just a plastic bag.

In its drive forward, Embling says Convex has actively sought out customers who will allow the company to develop products within good working relationships. The natural result is that Convex gains customers who are also pushing the edge. For all its innovation and growth, Convex is still a small company. Embling says its total annual tonnages could be produced in one week by some of its New Zealand competitors. "A lot of the things we do, they would laugh at because the jobs are too small."

Its small size makes development projects easier, he says. In the time it takes some companies to get a quote together, a Convex team could have formed, planned, trialed and produced a prototype for the client. One such development was plastic sleeves for softdrink bottles, identified as an opportunity by one of the sales team. He believed in the project, got a team together and drove it, Embling said. And the successful result has led to a contract for Classic Cola's South Island supply. "The market was always there, but no one had thought about replacing the paper sleeves with plastic."

All development is customer-initiated, Embling says. "We're not a leading edge research company. We have to make a living. We are trying to pick the bits of technology we can use and give clients the best deal.

As the company grows, so will the amount of overseas business. About 10% of business in sales dollars is now from offshore and Australia is an obvious growth market, where product quality is often lower and the level of service is "in some cases shocking".

Eventually, Embling says, Convex Plastics will be one of the best printers in the world. "It will take a while, and we will also have some of the best gear. "To be a world leading company we need more consistency in our product. We produce some beautiful work but it is not consistent enough." It's a long long way from the company that printed low cost plastic bags five years ago.