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Evolving in the Packaging Market

JBM Envelope launched in 1985 as an envelope brokerage firm. From the beginning, the company was focused on developing a culture of quality, innovation and excellence with a niche market in specialty envelopes. Fast forward to 2013, the year Marcus Sheanshang, the President and CEO, recognized the growth potential in a new segment and launched JBM’s packaging line,
ultimately leading to its new name, JBM Packaging.

“We are excited to promote our new company name — JBM Packaging. It’s much truer to what we’ve always done. The ‘envelope’ name did not highlight the innovation capabilities where we excel,” explained Sheanshang. “Innovation is the essence of who we are as a company.” 

That may sound cliché, but JBM has developed a reputation of taking on the hard problems that other suppliers may not want to tackle. According to Sheanshang, the company formed an Innovation Team several years ago to solve its customers’ toughest challenges. With technical expertise in 3D design, converting, printing, paper-based substrates, and adhesive applications, the team consists of packaging problem solvers dedicated to customer-driven product innovations.

The JBM Innovation Team works with customers to analyze their current packaging challenges as well as new opportunities that should be explored. Identifying new concepts and applying them against existing designs and processes, the team conducts a battery of tests to overcome “death threats” identified in new concepts. They have identified over 180 problems and opportunities for their customers, explored over 780 new ideas, conducted over 1,600 experiments, and achieved an excellent success rate of 50%.

“At JBM, we’ve always taken an innovative approach to developing our products. We exist to solve our customers’ challenges, and we’ve differentiated ourselves by being a unique
envelope — and packaging — manufacturer,” said Sheanshang.

New Offerings, New Name, New Equipment

JBM transferred their knowledge and expertise in the envelope business to packaging, such as custom finishes and adhesive types. Their complex folding capabilities make cartons special and more interesting. Featured products include folding cartons with custom windows and heavier stock applications. Their expanded packaging capabilities offers customers opportunities to grow their business in existing and new markets, reduce their operating costs, and make them more profitable.

As part of the company’s packaging expansion, Rollem’s equipment has offered JBM the flexibility to be more creative in executing their innovations and bringing new ideas to their customers. “The machine leveraged our creativity in ways not possible with typical envelope-folding equipment,” said Sheanshang. “ The new packaging equipment’s flexible, high-quality folding and die cutting allowed us to offer more capabilities to our customers. It has pushed us to expand the breadth of our innovation skills and abilities. Rollem was very involved in testing and supported every step of the way. They have been very helpful in making our packaging line successful. It’s been a great partnership.”

A good example of JBM’s specialty capabilities is their annual holiday card. The custom-designed cards highlight the company’s innovation capabilities and give customers thought starters for new ideas. The 2017 and 2018 holiday cards were manufactured on Rollem’s machine. The cards showed custom features such as pop-ups, crash-lock bottoms, textured embossing and advanced
die cutting with perforations. JBM has received fantastic customer feedback about these cards.

“We want to be different. We need to be special,” Sheanshang has been known to frequently say. “The real value we give our customers — beyond manufacturing envelopes and packages — is developing creative new ideas to grow their business and solve their issues, such as better performance of their product.”

For printers considering branching out into packaging, Sheanshang offers the following advice: “You need to be special. Commodity products are simple and focused on price. Offering unique value to customers is a win-win and is the best way to be successful in a new market.”

This case study was submitted by Rollem and JBM Packaging. If your company would like to submit a similar success story, please contact journal@sgia.org[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]