PACKAGING BRIEFS Thursday, Feb. 9

Sonoco taps James Micali as lead director
Sonoco, one of the largest diversified global packaging companies, has elected James Micali as its independent lead director, effective immediately. This appointment replaces the current practice of having an independent Board committee chairman rotate as presiding director. Micali has been an independent director of Sonoco since 2003 and currently serves as chair of the Board's Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee.

Avery Dennison LPM announces best-ever safety record
Avery Dennison Label and Packaging Materials (LPM) has announced a 2011 worldwide recordable incident rate of 0.46 injuries or illnesses for every 100 employees. LPM saw best-ever performances in Europe, South America and North America, with incident rates in those regions of 0.29, 0.5 and 0.62, respectively. The Asia Pacific region saw an incident rate of 0.46—just shy of beating its 2010 performance. In comparison, the average U.S. manufacturing company experienced a recordable incident rate of 4.4 injuries per 100 workers in 2010, according to the most recent data published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. All of Avery Dennison's worldwide sites follow U.S. safety recordkeeping practices.

Cheer Pack to expand North American manufacturing operations
Cheer Pack North America LLC is planning to relocate its manufacturing facility from Plymouth, MA, to West Bridgewater, MA, as part of a major capital expansion. The relocation and expansion project will result in the retention of Cheer Pack's current 35 employees and the addition of 75 new manufacturing jobs—resulting in 110 new jobs in the town of West Bridgewater. The company plans to lease 187,500 sq ft in the industrial building, which has a total floor space 315,000 sq ft and has been largely unoccupied for the last couple of years. Cheer Pack develops and manufactures proprietary spouted pouch packaging for the food and beverage industries.

Intelligrated and SDI Group USA launch operations in Brazil
Intelligrated, a leading North American-owned automated material handling solutions provider, and SDI Group USA, a leading global manufacturer and provider of integrated materials handling solutions, are launching a new jointly owned and managed operation in Sao Paulo state, Brazil. The two companies are combining their sales, engineering, project management, customer service and spare parts support capabilities under one Brazilian company to provide in-country material handling system solutions. Intelligrated and SDI Group USA have worked together for many years in the U.S. and internationally.

Exopack names new CEO

Exopack has appointed Christian Ragot as CEO of the company. Ragot, most recently served as president and CEO of Novariant Inc., a technology-based company providing solutions in GPS and other positioning control systems. On Feb. 13, 2012, Ragot will assume the Exopack CEO role held temporarily by Tom Vale, who will continue to fulfill his responsibilities as president, COO and secretary of the company.

Beumer Group and Hytrol Conveyor create strategic alliance

Hytrol Conveyor Co. and Beumer Group, two leading companies in the material handling industry, have developed a strategic alliance to provide sortation solutions in North & South America. This agreement brings together two best-in-breed technologies in conveying and high-speed unit sortation with exemplary customer support capabilities. Focusing on delivering sustainable throughput and productivity enhancements, the alliance makes a broad portfolio of automated material handling solutions available to an increasingly expanding range of warehousing and distribution operations through Hytrol's established integrator network.

Astro-Med divests North Carolina label operations
Astro-Med Inc. has sold its label manufacturing operations in Asheboro, NC, to the original owners of Label Line Ltd. CEO Everett Pizzuti, explains, "The primary business of that facility, producing labels for distributors, was not fully compatible with the business of our QuickLabel Systems Product Group, which produces labels primarily for sale to end user customers who own QuickLabel color printers. Although the divestiture will result in approximately $3 million less in annual revenues in the new fiscal year, the effect on Astro-Med's profitability and cash flow will be positive with annual savings of approximately $400,000. As Astro-Med has expanded its label manufacturing capacity over the past three years in Montreal, Canada; Frankfurt, Germany; and West Warwick, RI, the sale of the Asheboro plant will have little effect on the company's capabilities to supply labels to our growing base of color label printer customers."

Plastics blow molding manufacturer reaches plant safety milestone, celebrates with trip to the Bahamas
In the manufacturing industry, where accidents and injuries—from simple cuts to near fatalities—are the norm, two years without even one lost-time incident is a great accomplishment. On Jan. 26, 2012, Meredith-Springfield Associates Inc., a technical plastics blow molding and manufacturing company, achieved that goal. The rewards are not only physical and financial, but a morale booster for the entire team. In February, a quarterly, company-wide employee meeting will conclude with a drawing in which one lucky employee will win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

PPT Vision hires vp of sales
PPT Vision has rehired Stephanie Vinger as vp of sales. Vinger has more than 15 years of experience at PPT Vision, including sales manager for the Asia Pacific Region. She joined PPT Vision as an application engineer in 1997 and became sales and application engineering manager for the Asia Pacific region in 2001. She became a member of PPT Vision's senior management team in 2005, adding marketing communications responsibilities to her role as sales manager for the Asia Pacific Region. Since 2008, she has served as global technical services manager for Image Sensing Systems, managing a team of sales engineers to provide advanced support for machine vision and radar-based products. Vinger is fluent in several Chinese dialects, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkian and Hahka, with knowledge of Bahasa Malaysia, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean.

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