Opus Packaging: The Quest For The Perfect Sheet Plant

BY LEN PRAZYCH

“We’ve had a relationship with Arvco for decades and the company is still a supplier to Opus,” says Manor. “One of their largest customers relocated up to Detroit, the lease on Arvco’s Indianapolis facility was coming due, and COVID-19 had hit them pretty hard, so it was time for them to make a decision as to whether or not they wanted to maintain a presence here in Indianapolis. We were in the process of finding equipment for our new Whitestown facility when the opportunity to acquire Arvco’s assets presented itself.” “It was a natural,” adds Stoner. “The assets from Arvco provided the much-needed equipment, as well as key employees and the sales infrastructure for our new startup, while renewing the friendship between the companies and ultimately, maximizing our efficiencies.”

Of the 30 employees now working at Opus Packaging – Whitestown, ten are from Arvco, which is seven miles from the Arvco Indianapolis facility. Several of Arvco’s temporary workers may also be joining the company. Opus brought in two of Arvco’s sales staff, including one full-time outside salesperson. The second is an inside salesperson, who doubles as a designer. Both brought “a good book of business” that will now be serviced by a company with a long history of providing stellar customer service.

A Family Business

The origins of Opus Packaging began in the mid-1940s after World War II, when Robert Manor and Ralph Stoner started their respective corrugated box careers at River Raisin Paper Co., which was later acquired by Union Camp. Robert Manor was married to Stoner’s sister, Virginia. Stoner moved on in 1967 to co-found Michigan Packaging Company, a corrugated sheet supplier. Manor established Safeway Packaging in 1984 to Manufacture corrugated packaging, which his son, Kevin Manor, took over in 1994 after Robert's untimely death. Butch Stoner worked for his father at Michigan Packaging as President until 2000.

As cousins, Kevin and Butch spent their “formative years” watching their fathers succeed in the corrugated business and after enjoying successful careers in the industry themselves, decided to join forces: in 2001, the two acquired Action Packaging in western Michigan, an area in which they grew up and were eager to return. Both Safeway and Action enjoyed record growth from 2000 to 2010, when the cousins established joint ownership of both companies to take advantage of the synergies created by being commonly owned. In 2013, they bought an existing box maker in Jackson, Michigan, and formed Opus Packaging as the holding company for the three locations. Growth continued in March of 2019 with the purchase of Wabash Container Corporation in Mount Carmel, Illinois, and in August 2019, with the investment in the greenfield operation in Whitestown. Manor and Stoner decided that as joint owners of five facilities, they would rebrand under one name, Opus Packaging. The company’s five wholly owned entities are Opus Packaging – Grand Rapids in Caledonia, Michigan, company headquarters; Opus Packaging – New Bremen in New Bremen, Ohio; Opus Packaging – Jackson in Jackson, Michigan; Opus Packaging – Wabash in Mt. Carmel, Illinois; and Opus Packaging – Indianapolis in Whitestown, Indiana.

“Our fathers taught us that customer service is at the heart of everything we do,” says Manor. “As a single-source packaging partner, we’ll do whatever it takes to ensure our customers’ packaging and distribution needs are met, today and tomorrow. Decades of experience has taught us that a collaborative process with our customers results in more efficient, effective products.”

Key Features of the Opus Packaging:

• 1: Opus Packaging's first 5-color Hycorr die cutter was installed in its New Bremen, Ohio,
  facility. It purchased a second Hycorr - a 4-color outside printing/1-color inside printing version - for its greenfield plant in Whitestown, Indianapolis.
• 2: Opus Packaging installed a Baysek flat bed die cutter with inline flexo print station in its New Bremen, Ohio, plant.
• 3: Opus Packaging installed a Bahuller jubo gluer for its Grand Rapids facility in Caledonia, Michigan.

Indiana Strong

It was having several “sizable” customers – and correspondingly sizable freight costs – in Indiana that were being serviced from Opus’ Grand Rapids facility in Michigan that prompted the cousins to open the new 170,000-square-foot facility in Whitestown, which before Arvco’s assets were added, contained a Ward 66-inch by 125-inch 2-color flexo folder gluer, a Post folder gluer and some peripheral equipment. “Because we were essentially starting from scratch, we felt like we were in a position to create the perfect sheet plant," says Stoner. "But we needed nother flexo folder gluer and another rotary die cutter. We got an S&S 30 inch by 90-inch flexo folder gluer in the Arvco purchase, but we decided to re-deploy the die cutter that was in the Arvco facility to one of our other locations and bring in a brand new Hycorr."

The Hycorr is a 5-color (4-color outside printing/1-color inside printing) 66-inch by 115-inch rotary die cutter that started up in November and has the capacity to accommodate the needs of Opus’ existing and new customers in the automotive, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, food & beverage segments. The inside/outside print capabilities will also satisfy the increased demand for e-commerce packaging. “We bought our first Hycorr 5-color (all outside print) machine for our New Bremen operations three years ago and we were very satisfied, which is why we are investing in another here in Whitestown,” says Stoner. Indeed, the Hycorr will accommodate its customers’ e-commerce packaging demands and more, but instead of making another investment in a digital press, all Opus Packaging operations have been farming out requests for digital work. “We’ve decided to hold off on digital because it is changing so quickly,” says Manor. “It seems like every time we look at a machine, there is already a new version of it coming out. There seems to be a lot of capacity in the marketplace to run digital, so it makes sense to continue farming it out for now. We see digital as something we want to be in one day but we’re waiting for the market to stabilize a bit.”

Sticking to its time-tested and proven sheet plant model, Opus Packaging does not have a corrugator in any of its five locations, nor is it a member of a sheet feeder consortium. The company gets its sheets on the open market, primarily from Corr-Choice, formerly Michigan Packaging Company, of which Stoner was president.

More Growth

So how do these two corrugated industry veterans manage five sheet plants, dozens of pieces of equipment and approximately 350 employees across four states? “We have very good people in all of our plants that keep this going,” says Manor. “We keep in touch throughout the month and have formal meetings – now on Zoom – every couple of weeks to go over financials and results. We’ve got a great team – our COO, CFO, Human Resources Director and the people around them – which has allowed us to acquire great talent.”

Amtech’s Imaginera Software and Power BI, a Microsoft product, keep all Opus Packaging’s facilities connected efficiently, while allowing room for more expansion and across- the-board growth. Since 2011, Manor and Stoner have grown Opus Packaging 100 percent through internal organic growth and the aforementioned acquisitions. They are still in “growth mode” and say they want to continue growing in the Midwest, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t looking in other parts of the country, as well.

Like other box makers across the country, Opus Packaging has been impacted by COVID, especially during April and May, when the virus was spiking in the Midwest. “We’re coming out of it now and we’re seeing record levels of sales across all our companies, so much so that it’s been hard to keep up with demand,” says Stoner. “And it’s largely been industry specific. Manufacturing is coming back very strong and most of our customers in that segment seem to be returning. Some of our automotive customers are lagging behind, but that is also improving as time goes on.”

“Our philosophy is to build a team around us – it can’t be all about us going forward, which is why we’ve hired some amazing people with a lot of industry experience, some whom we’ve known from our time in the industry,” says Manor. “We’re getting really good at integrating new acquisitions into our family and we’re always looking for new opportunities, for example, acquiring the

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