PackEx also realises creative print ideas in quantities of one

Companies often need creatively printed items for special promotions, holiday gifts or trade fairs - from attractive banderoles and smart business cards to customised folding boxes. Worms-based packaging start-up PackEx GmbH, which specialises in small batches, specialises in the short-term realisation of such projects.

The Hamburg-based personnel service provider TimePartner wanted to send personalised Easter gifts with individually designed banderoles to its customers this year. What a great idea! However, the employment agency, which employs 10,300 people at 173 locations, only decided on the campaign shortly before Easter. To be precise, there were only two days between the idea and its realisation.

„Our business model and our way of working are characterised by digitalisation. This makes us a very modern, progressive company,“ says Thomas Dick, Managing Director at TimePartner: „Of course, this modernity should also be reflected in our gifts and our external communication.“ That's why this year the Easter chocolate personalised for business partners and customers according to the latest trends: Individualised mass products so to speak. TimePartner wanted the chocolate to be wrapped in unique banderoles.

How can such a project, which also only involves a small number of units, be realised in such a short time? Thomas Dick remembers: „We were often faced with the question: „Personalised gift in large quantities or small quantities and suitable for mass production?“ It was not least a question of profitability. Smaller quantities would not have been individualised, while larger quantities of personalised products would have entailed considerable additional costs for the destruction of surplus copies.

The solution was finally found in Worms. TimePartner also has a branch there - and that's where PackEx. Because the young company - a subsidiary of August Faller Group - only produces small batches and offers customised folding boxes. Production ranges from a quantity of 1 to a maximum of 5,000 copies.

Everything under control with the PackEx B2B app

The centrepiece of the young offer is the PackEx B2B app for PC and mobile devices. Customers can use it to configure their customised folding cartons via the Internet from anywhere in the world and at any time. The internet-based software offers a guided configuration process. The material, size and many other parameters can be selected. For the creation of the Print layouts PackEx provides file templates. The product created can be tested on screen as a 3D prototype. All configurations can be saved in the PackExCloud and are available for reordering as required. The provider attaches great importance to the fact that the cloud is hosted in a certified German data centre and complies with all the rules of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The PackEx app is the direct interface to production. All production systems are networked with each other and automatically initiate the next process steps. This is the prerequisite for fast production times, as PackEx emphasises on its website. This is because employees no longer have to carry out many activities manually.

„Thanks to PackEx, we have individual and personalised folding boxes - a promotional tool that we hadn't thought of before and that is an efficient advertising measure.“
Thomas Dick, Managing Director TimePartner

The automated PackEx workflow produces various orders by printing them together in a resource-saving way so that as many orders as possible, including different ones, can be accommodated. Printing takes place automatically on offset or digital printing systems in seven-colour mode.
The cardboard boxes are then cut to size using a High power laser. Punching tools are not required for this, so there are no changeover times. Quality assurance is also automated using high-speed cameras. Even the dispatch packaging is automatically created to suit the respective delivery, so that no material is wasted at this point either.

PackEx guarantees to produce orders within 72 hours. In the case of TimePartner, it took just 48 hours from online configuration to delivery. As the app was still in the pilot phase at the time, an employee from the Packaging company with the structural design of the banderoles for the Easter chocolate. He instructed Thomas Dick, showed him the optimum dimensions and explained how the print data had to be created.

„Visiting cubes“ were a real customer magnet

After the positive experience with the Easter gifts, TimePartner also used the PackEx service for a trade fair project a short time later. They were looking for creative ideas for individualised giveaways and business cards. This time, the personnel service provider immediately utilised the PackExConfigurator. An extraordinary idea was born in no time at all.

Thomas Dick and his team have now designed three-dimensional business cards. The Trade fair presentations came in the form of small cubes, which also contained the contact information. The address data was on the outside. Punched-out logos, which were produced fully automatically by PackEx's high-performance laser, served as visual embellishments. The small Visiting cube filled TimePartner with sound boxes and chocolate bars.
The unique „visiting cubes“ were well received by the trade fair guests. Thomas Dick summarises: „The cubes were a real customer magnet, I would almost say a lure. We generated a lot of attention with them.“

After what Dick believes has been a positive experience with PackEx, nothing stands in the way of further orders. The head of the personnel service provider already has ideas for further Trade fair give-aways. And last but not least, Christmas presents have to be prepared for customers at the end of the year. This much can already be revealed: Personalised wrapped Santas will be sent out.

http://www.packex.com