CHANGING HOW OVERNIGHT ENVELOPES ARE MADE

THE CHALLENGE

It was the late 80's. The economy was booming; paper supplies were short.

Like many folding carton companies, Bell Incorporated was looking for alternative sources for paperboard. They managed to secure a supply agreement with a new source for a recycled paperboard product with exceptional strength and stiffness characteristics.

Most at Bell saw this as a boon for current customers. Raw material costs would drop and lead times shorten. But Mark Graham, President and owner of the company, saw an opportunity. Bell could save someone millions of dollars by substituting this low-cost substrate for more expensive paperboard. They just needed to find a product that was the right fit.

THE SOLUTION

At about that time, the overnight letter carrier industry was taking off. And most of the competitors were buying overnight envelopes made of expensive virgin paperboard. It was the opportunity Mark Graham was looking for.

In what would be the first of many innovations for the industry, Bell designed an overnight envelope made of the low-caliper recycled board. The product offered excellent strength characteristics with significant cost savings. Before long, Bell Incorporated had signed contracts to produce envelopes for UPS and the U.S. Postal Service.

From this experience, Mark Graham and Bell's manufacturing team recognized that they could build a significant business by driving costs out of the production of overnight envelopes. That is what they set out to do. They moved all production onto high-speed, web-fed presses and developed proprietary technologies to extrude glue and apply tape and tear-strings inline. They also found ways to significantly reduce paper and tape waste. These process improvements more than tripled production speeds and cut tape and string costs by almost 50%.

Bell also went to work to design a better overnight envelope. Bell packaging engineers developed improved fold-over seal and seal liner designs and worked with an adhesive R&D laboratory to create a patented primer to strengthen seal adhesion. These innovations increased the reliability of overnight envelopes and reduced processing and shipping costs.

THE RESULTS

Over a ten year period, Bell Incorporated literally changed the way overnight envelopes are made. Their process and design improvements reduced the cost of overnight envelopes by 30% while improving envelope reliability. In so doing, they saved millions of dollars for their customers.

It's no surprise that in 2001, Bell Incorporated became the largest producer of overnight envelopes in the world. They have not relinquished that title since.