Container Corporation and You
With the right material and the right plan, one man, all by himself, can make a good container.
And once he gets the hang of it, he might make six or eight of them an hour.
But the need for containers like this one runs into the scores of thousands per hour, every hour, every day.
Containers like this one, some smaller but most bigger, hold and protect the major share of everything produced for distribution in this country.
So it is easy to see why the production of containers on any meaningful scale requires a team effort, and a very large team at that.
Bob Beck is a structural designer in Container Corporation's shipping container plant in Carroll Stream, Illinois.
This plant and other company facilities at Carroll Stream comprise the world's largest and best equipped packaging complex.
As we said, Bob can make a good container by hand, but that's not really his job.
Bob's job, and that of Wally Mortenson, head of the department, is to plan containers to do their jobs better.
Bob and Wally together couldn't make enough containers by themselves to fill the smallest order that container division salesman Kai Anderson could bring in.
But they all know who can make enough and more.
Just beyond the structural design department, the 247 people on the Carroll Stream team of container makers can convert the plans of Bob Beck and Wally Mortenson and all of their fellow designers and planners into sufficient quantities of the right containers to do any job.
And the same potential is there at every plant and mill in the company.
Who these team members are, and how they work together.
Is what this story is all about.
As die setter Frank Stefanik checks Bob Beck's plan against the completed die that will stamp out the production container.
It is 10 .01 Central Standard Time.
Right now, let's leave Carroll Stream and see how representative teams of container corporation personnel work together around the country on a typical day.
We should start with material.
And for that we have to go further back than that handy piece of paper board that Bob started out with.
From Carroll Stream, Illinois, the beginning is nearly a thousand miles away in the pine forests of the southeastern United States.
The company's mills at Fernandina Beach, Florida and Bruton, Alabama take it from there.
But taking it from there requires some very complicated steps.
The next step after cutting is to weigh the truckloads of wood as they come in.
It is 11 .03 at Bruton, where the first man the truck driver sees at the mill is Dewey Pittman.
Dewey checks the traffic both ways.
The difference between truck weight in and the weight out is what we pay for, so nobody skips his turn.
The same thing goes for the big trailerloads of chips.
The stream of traffic is constant because the need is constant.
And the huge woodyards at Bruton and Fernandina represent a substantial lead on the never -ending appetite of the paper -making machines for the raw material all of this wood will produce.
Crane operator Lamar Stowers and slingman Elijah Cunningham double -team a lot of truckloads on every working day.
Trees from farther out come in by rail.
And another kind of crane transfers them to water and mechanical conveyors, leading up to the debarking drums which strip them clean before sending them on to the chippers.
The chip trucks bypass this operation, of course, and are relieved of their loads in the most direct way.
A network of conveyor lines takes the wood, now all reduced to chips, to the chemical phases of its preparation for paper -making.
Here, chips are literally pressure -cooked to separate paper -making fibers from the rest of the wood.
After the cellulose fibers used in paper -making are separated from the wood, they have to be washed clean of their release chemicals before going on to further preparations.
These steps start in the wash plant, where washers are inspected by washer screen operator Louis Mize.
Further up the line, Bruce Lindsay, washer screen second helper, checks the decker operation where pulping material is dewatered before storing until needed.
After chemical separation, wood fibers retain their natural brown color, the familiar brown color of most shipping containers.
But for many packaging applications, paperboard must be white, and for such applications, fibers must be chemically bleached.
At Brewton, this is a five -stage process under overall control of a computer system.
Bleach plant operator Oakland Ard makes status inquiries of the computer and gets an immediate printed response.
But periodic physical inspection is also part of the routine.
Charlie Skirlok, bleach plant first helper, checks each control center regularly.
After wood fibers, the raw material of paperboard are extracted from raw wood chips and carried through further refining steps.
They are fed on the fast -moving forming wire of what is called the wet end of the paper machine.
The slight side -to -side motion of the four drenier machines used at Brewton and Fernandina help control the alignment of the fibers as they begin to form a loose wet web of paper.
Bates monitors the controls governing the machine's wet end.
Other men and much automatic equipment keep the sheet, presently running at 745 feet per minute, under constant observation all the way along the machine's 600 -odd feet.
For a bleached board like this one, coating is an important extra step in the process.
Coatings are applied to the sheet near the dry end of the machine and coder -sized pressman Ronald Fuqua overseas this part of the operation.
A paper machine seldom stops and then only for periodic washups, felt and wire changes, and routine maintenance.
Back tender Ray Carmichael checks out the diversion of the paperboard stream from a full roll to an empty one without missing a beat.
And fifth -hand Clarence Joyner moves the finished roll along for sampling and then on to the rewinding station.
Another group of mills in Container Corporation's mill division makes good use of reclaimed fibers available in selected grades of waste paper.
Because of the abundance of such material in our urban centers, 12 of the company's mills are strategically located in or near northern cities in 10 states coast to coast.
Typical of these paperboard facilities is the mill at Santa Clara, California, where at 8 .18 a .m.
mill yard activity indicates the scope of reclaimed fiber application to paperboard production.
Reprocessing begins in the hydropulper and the mix and process here specifies one bale of white shredded and three bales of corrugated scrap.
Assistant operator Hugh Coleman activates stock release from the control panel.
Some two to two and a half hours from this point, the mix will be sufficiently blended and refined to join other blends being fed into the Santa Clara cylinder type paperboard machine.
Once on the machine, the process becomes the responsibility of specialists like machine tender Dale Scribner and further down fifth -hand Larry Silva and seventh -hand Andy Dulick.
Cylinder grades have long been a mainstay of paperboard production and many grades are coded for improved printing quality.
For more than 40 years, Container Corporation has demonstrated that application of reclaimed fibers is not only technically and economically a sound practice, but also contributes directly to the conservation of natural resources.
The pioneer paper stock division of the company has the important responsibility of collecting, grading, and distributing this valuable byproduct of urban life through its facilities in eight locations.
Currently, the rate of collecting runs to more than one million tons per year.
The activities of the division's Ogden Avenue plant in Chicago typify these operations.
Back in the central time zone, it is 1032 as forklift operator Horace Hayes releases a bale of graded waste paper to receiving supervisor Phil Brown for weigh -in and identification coding.
After sorting and grading, waste paper is baled in specified mixes and weights by Howard Perkins and Alvery McCoy.
Forklift operator Walter McClearn loads an outgoing truck even as pioneer driver Bill Roloff brings in another.
The paperboard produced in the mill division's 14 facilities, which include two mills that produce only corrugating medium, finds its way in an orderly stream to the more than 50 fabricating plants in three divisions whose primary material is paperboard.
The fabricating plants which convert paperboard into packaging are located to best serve the particular markets in their various areas.
Some 30 of these plants, located in 19 states, manufacture shipping containers and the container division is the company's largest.
One of the division's newest facilities is located at Ravenna, Ohio.
At Ravenna, as at all shipping container plants, roll stock storage is the base point and it must accommodate the material needs of a variety of shipping container types and sizes.
At 11 .40 Eastern Standard Time, Dan Danton makes one of the many daily pickups of roll stock that must be completed to stay slightly ahead of the corrugator's demands.
Corrugator operator Mark Arganti and helper Randy Kerr find a useful place for Danton's delivery.
Since the corrugator is the heart of every shipping container plant's operations, its schedules are tightly planned and executed.
The basic guide to each shift's activities is the cutting list.
Conferences like this one between Slitterman Ernie Schrock, corrugator foreman Ken Cooper, and planner Russ Tischer are common around a corrugator.
What it all adds up to is a virtually endless flow of corrugated board, with the familiar strengthening arches of the corrugated medium sandwiched between layers of craft liner glued to each surface.
Henry Gardner and Bill Holt move the cut board to the conveyor lines, which will move it to the next stage of fabrication.
The Houston Container Division plant is approximately 1 ,000 miles southwest of Ravenna.
And at Houston, as in all shipping container plants, corrugator output supports production's life flow.
At 12 .48 Central Standard Time, off -bearers Travis Jones, Bergen Davis, Alfredo Rangel, and Norwood Nelson keep the flow moving off and away as supervisor David Boiner checks out the situation.
From this point, the cut board will move on through the printing, slotting, and finishing operations that will produce completed shipping containers.
On an 86 -inch printer slaughter, press feeder Pete Villanuevo sets stock for a 500 -pound test, double -wall, half -slotted unit, one piece of a special multiple -unit container.
Press helpers Bobby Fred Barnes and Sarge Taylor assist press operator I .S.
Milligan in an unusual application of corrugated packaging.
On a somewhat smaller scale, the printing of the outer section of a two -piece citrus box is being completed on a 37 -by -80 -inch printer slaughter.
Before the inner box can be run, press operator Joe Coats and press helper Nick Jenner's must complete a new press make -ready.
It is 12 .57 at our Dalton, Illinois, plant where one can see more of the complete range of printing equipment required in a modern shipping container operation.
On a piece of equipment common to all of the division's plants, a 50 -by -113 -inch printer slaughter, feeder Chuck Bell supplies the stock for a container to ship electric fans.
Something a bit more unusual in the press line is represented by Dalton's Flexo folder gluer, here running containers for a soft drink mix.
This machine actually combines the printing and finishing stages of container production, taking the cut board directly from the corrugator, printing it in two colors, folding and gluing, ready to ship.
Heading the crew, operator Bob Rasmussen confers with finishing form and less clue, while helper Gary Trudgeon and bundler Jerry Roseborough keep this highly efficient output moving.
Twenty -five containers to the bundle, 500 containers to the pallet.
The Malt Avenue plant in Los Angeles is one of the several key plants in the container division that produce solid fiber containers along with their corrugated container output.
Although solid fiber board is run on the familiar corrugator, modified to include a fiber laminator, solid fiber formation bypasses the corrugating action, which gives corrugated board its combination of light weight and strength.
Solid fiber is just what it sounds like, multiple layers of paper board laminated together for the strength to meet the most challenging demands of shipping, storing, and handling.
It is 1106 in Los Angeles as double back operator Ed Ortega adds a roll of chip onto the shaftless roll stand, supplementing the two rolls already running.
Each roll adds its own layer to the lamination.
Operator Jim Bryan checks over the lineup.
From this point on, the cut solid fiber board moves on through printing and other operations, much like corrugated board.
Ishmael Ramos, press operator and helper Bob Murphy are responsible here for the production of overseas shippers, each of which will hold and protect 30 dozen eggs.
Good reason for solid fiber strength and resistance to handling abuse.
Stitching, an important finishing operation in solid fiber production, is typified in this semi -automatic installation.
50 years of experience are represented by this two -man team of stitcher operator Rex Berry and bundler Sam Asnoth.
From a malt avenue stitching operation across three time zones to a New Brunswick, New Jersey stitching operation brings up an interesting point.
After forming and cutting the board, then slotting and printing the emerging containers, there is an important final phase of production, the finishing operations.
These include folding, gluing, taping, and or stitching.
At 2 .25 Eastern Standard Time, Eleanor Boyette is the operator of a semi -automatic stitcher.
Eleanor is a veteran of 22 years with our New Brunswick facility.
Ted Alexander sets in a new roll of tape to feed an automatic taper in a high -speed finishing operation.
Frank Vega works at the same machine.
Semi -automatic taper operator Elsie DeCesie is a veteran of 29 years.
Bundler Ortiz Ritzi moves the output of Elsie's taper on down the line.
George Rouse operates another high -speed unit, an automatic folder gluer.
George exhibits beautiful mastery of leverage in his adroit handling of stock at the feeding end of the machine.
These and other finishing operations give the New Brunswick shipping department some busy times.
Checker loader Chick Chicus loads special pallets of one -way beverage containers into conveyor trucks designed to maximize shipping efficiency at the unloading end of the trip.
As we move from the New Brunswick plant, we move out of the container division and on some 450 miles west -southwest to Pickwa, Ohio, site of one of the fiber can divisions eight plants.
Just about everything in the fiber can division is different from what we have been seeing except the primary raw material, which is still paperboard, although metal and plastics are important supporting materials.
Paperboard from one of the container corporations Mills arrives in familiar roll stock form, but it has to be cut down to generally much narrower dimensions before fabrication.
At 2 42, the Eastern Day has moved on to mid -afternoon as slitter operator Carl White performs his one -man make -ready crew actions on a new roll of material.
The roll is positioned, the knives are set, and the slitter is started.
Order filler Greg Neid picks up label rolls for a long run of oil cans already underway.
Spiral winder trainee Ray Schaller loads on a new roll of paperboard so it will be ready to go when the old one runs out.
Each roll of material adds one ply to the cans being formed by spiral winding around the mandrel, and the label roll winds on last and becomes the outside layer as well as the cans label identification.
Spiral department group leader Ed Goubeau and Inspector Mary Helen Dill contribute their parts to the production pace, all under the supervision of spiral winder foreman Ed Watkins.
Moving over to the seaming operation, we can see how the metal bottom ends are attached to the fiber bodies of the cans just off their winding sequence.
Top ends, packed separately, will be added on the customer's filling lines.
Seamer operator Donna Brownlee monitors this final production station.
From here, a high -speed conveyor pushes the cans up to case packer operator George Jones, whose automatic palletizer neatly piles tier on tier in a fitting ending to a high production operation.
On another Piqua spiral line, spiral operator Jim McEldowney changes the label roll on a caulking compound dispensing container.
Plastic dispensing tips added further down the line come from our Addison, Illinois plastics division plant.
On a convolut line, the various plies of paperboard are wound straight on rather than in a spiral.
Here, convolut operator Bill Wyon oversees production of another product that is something of a household word where children play.
If you go about 450 miles due east of Piqua and stop at 1204 East 12th Street in Wilmington, Delaware, you will be in another division of container corporation, the plastics division of which the Wilmington facility is one of six plants.
Starting with raw material delivery, every aspect of plastics manufacture is different from what we have seen so far in the operations of Container Corporation of America.
Most plastics raw materials arrive in the form of tiny granules which flow freely through pipelines.
Once inside, further preparation is necessary before the material is suitable for one of the several molding techniques employed at this plant.
It is 338 in Wilmington as operator Albert Christ supervises one of the important refining processes.
Pallets are ground to a fine powder and then blended with other materials to meet a variety of special requirements.
Although the plastics division is the company's smallest, its range of products is the largest in size differentiation by far.
At one end of the scale here at Wilmington is a six -gallon chemical container produced by Blow Molding.
Operator Irv Bacon pulls two completed units from the machine after each molding cycle.
Reginald Williams and Tom Lemon trim away bits of plastic flashing in attached caps produced by injection molding in the division's Addison, Illinois plant.
Brief exposure to heat makes the container's sides receptive to labeling further along the production line.
Moving up the size scale, we see 53 -gallon drum inserts being inspected for pinholes.
Juan Roman is one of the team that applies water pressure tests to every unit produced in this line.
The character of the chemicals to be transported in these containers demands the most rigorous quality control.
After inspection, the plastic inserts are fitted into their steel overpacks by a team which includes material handler Herman Brinkley.
The same plastic inserts can also be fitted into fiber drums manufactured by the division's Matawan, New Jersey facility.
Tom Thomas checks out some of the finished products of various Wilmington processes.
The largest unit in the line so far is a 24 -gallon tank weighing 675 pounds.
That would be hard to match in paperboard.
Not far and miles from Wilmington is historical Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, now an impressive state park with picturesque mementos of glories long past.
Near this park is Container Corporation's Research and Development Center and Carton Plant, both important facilities of the folding carton division, which includes 13 carton plants in 11 states.
At 3 .48 p .m., Valley Forge structural designer Jack Desmond finishes a complicated carton design mock -up which features a product display window.
Jack demonstrates the carton's various features to Jim Tinney, one of our managers of special accounts.
Later, he checks the proposed carton's adaptability to packaging machinery with Jim Lavin of the Valley Forge Machinery Development Department.
With these bases covered, Jack crosses over to the Valley Forge Carton Plant to confer with some people who will help make the carton plan work.
While Jack discusses the specifics of his carton plan with die room foreman Stan Unxt, Valley Forge die makers go about their interesting work.
Bob Galambas sets rules into a die.
He recalls that one recent die required more than 6 ,000 pieces of metal, a high mark for the department.
Jerry Eastwood bends rules into the precise patterns called for by the carton his die will form.
The high degree of craftsmanship in evidence here is a tradition throughout the company.
The Arlington, Texas plant is some 1 ,000 miles from Valley Forge, but the attitudes toward doing things right are just the same.
Printing is one of the most demanding aspects of folding carton production, but before the printing department gets the job, the design laboratory gets it.
A few days ago, artist Clint Stokes discussed the color photographs to be reproduced on a rice carton with service manager Bobby Parish, who is responsible for getting printing plates made for the job.
At 3 .36 today in the Arlington press room, these plates have been hung on a six -color offset press, now well into its make ready to run three different rice cartons on one sheet at one time.
First pressman Doyle Wood and press helper Charles Bryant must precisely set and match up these six plates, wrapped around six different cylinders so that their impressions stay in exact register on each sheet coming through the press rolls at high speed.
Press room foreman Ross Norris checks proof sheets while Doyle and Charlie make corrective adjustments all along the line.
Make ready for this kind of job takes about five hours, and then the long press run will proceed at high speed.
Press work is demanding but very interesting, and the majority of Arlington's pressmen have been at Container Corporation from 18 to 25 years.
Press helper Fred Napier is responsible for the supply into the press.
The paper here was made at our Santa Clara mill, and each skid holds 2 ,500 sheets.
Once the press run is underway, new skids will move in at a steady rhythm.
Mid -afternoon has now caught up with the West Coast.
At the Santa Clara California carton plant, adjoining the Santa Clara mill we saw earlier, it is 2 .57 Pacific Standard Time, as we see a gravure press being fed by a roll of paper board rather than from a skid of sheets as at Arlington.
The continuous sheet runs through five color banks, and then on to cut off at the end of the press.
First pressman John Alba and stripper Tony Usey make a lot of complicated printing production look easy.
The important cutting operation follows printing in carton production.
For a good range of carton finishing operations, we move back more than halfway across the country from Santa Clara to the folding carton division side of the Carroll Stream complex, our starting place on this tour.
It is 5 .02 in the division's largest finishing department.
Here, cartons begin to look like the packaging we see every day in stores everywhere.
Paul Cox, for example, sees to the running of special boutique boxes of facial tissues, complete with see -through plastic windows.
And Peggy Ball handles the finishing of a well -known medicine cabinet item a few finishing lines over.
A handy dispenser of a line of beverages well known to children from coast to coast is being run on another Carroll Stream line.
Equally well known is the output of finishing lines attended to by Frank Bacton and Carolyn Greenwell.
And so it goes, right on across not only Carroll Stream's finishing department, but the whole company all around the United States and overseas.
Every individual's job is directly related to all of the other jobs up and down the line.
And the combined effort of all these jobs makes a major contribution to packaging.
Packaging is important to everybody's business and, more to the point, to everybody's living and well -being.
Across the span of our random typical day, we have seen some 100 people of Container Corporation doing their various jobs in 15 plants and mills all over the country.
All of them are container makers.
Who they are and what they do represent the larger team of 15 ,000 container people in more than 80 facilities in the United States.
The newest member of this team is an important member, playing an important position from the start.