Cumberland Invests (CONT’D FROM PAGE 26)
capacity with these machines, and so we only had about two weeks’ lead time when other people were at four, five and six weeks.” With their inside/outside print capabilities, Cumber- land’s Apstars were gateways into new graphics territory. Looking to further diversify their graphics options, Jared and his team in May of 2021 acquired an Automatan A+ litho laminator. “In 2021 we found the Automatan A+ litho laminator because we wanted to try to move our capabil- ity in graphics in that direction as well,” Jared said. “While we’re still predominantly a brown box business, there is a growing market for that.” Randy Swallows, Cumberland’s sales manager, says the Automatan gives them greater control of the process, saying, “being able to label sheets or cartons in-house rather than having to send them out makes us more competitive and gives the customer faster turnaround times.” “Why not digital?” we asked. Jared’s contrarian nature and studied frugality made him shy away from the digital print crowd. “The Apstars were in the forefront of inside/ outside, single-pass printing,” Jared said. “That was some- thing we identified as being up and coming with e-com- merce. Plus,” he added, “our competitor had just put in a new single-pass high-speed digital printer and they were going in that direction of high graphics. We didn’t think it would be good to go head-to-head with them and try to make that investment. So we thought for a much less cost CONTINUED ON PAGE 30
provement.” Like the Apstar HG2 Flexo Folder Gluer, Cum- berland’s Apstar HG2 66x126 Rotary Die Cutter has one color inside/three color outside print capability, running up to 12,000 sheets per hour. Jared and his team matched this horsepower with the AG Stacker G3 Die Cutter Stack- er with Intelligent safety system and laser-aligned set-up to ensure maximum productivity.
The timing of these installations was propitious: they prepared Cumberland for the COVID demand spike that dogged industrial supply chains for months. “The fortu- nate thing,” Jared said, “was we were doing most of these things right before COVID. We had a lot of capabilities and Cumberland paired the AG Stacker G3 stacker with the Apstar Rotary Die Cutter.
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