Big Picture - June/July 2020 - 22

CARRYING A NEW TUNE
How the OnsetX3 is changing the way Southern Carton does business.
"We're looking for more
and more opportunities
because the OnsetX3 is
so versatile. It's a great
selling feature in that we
can print white and our
competitors cannot."
- DAVE KENNEDY, CEO,

BIG PICTURE

June/July 2020

SOUTHERN CARTON

Just 50 miles south of Nashville sits Lewisburg, Tennessee, a
small town defined as much by its quaint backyards and front
porches as its industries and farmland. And like any town in any
other part of the country, Lewisburg is changing; being a short
drive from the country music capital of the world has its privileges.
Music halls. Wineries. Craft breweries and distilleries. Each
has created a number of new opportunities for companies like
Southern Carton (southerncarton.com), a solutions company that
specializes in packaging.
Founded in 1977 by Jim Kennedy, Southern Carton has
evolved into a highly recognized company with a state-of-the-art
facility. In a time when things can change on a dime, the familyowned and -operated, third-generation business continues to
find new ways to serve its community. Today, Southern Carton is
led by Jim's son, Dave, CEO, and grandson, Conner.
One of the resources helping take Southern Carton in a
new direction is their purchase of the OnsetX3, with white ink
channels, which is capable of printing in excess of 9600 square
feet per hour (180 beds/hour). The OnsetX3 features 3 x CMYK
ink channels, plus the choice of white or orange. "We're looking
for more and more and more opportunities because the OnsetX3
is so versatile," Dave says. "It's a great selling feature in that we
can print white and our competitors cannot."
Part of the OnsetX3's allure are the Fujifilm Dimatix drop-ondemand printheads that are perfect for the production of high
volume, quality images onto a wide variety of media. Jetting a
14 picoliter drop size, the printheads provide a good balance of
quality and volume to meet client demands.

And to ensure maximum throughput, it is compatible with
Inca's flexible automation system, which offers Southern Carton
the choice to operate in manual or semi-automated handling
from the same configuration.
The OnsetX3's intangibles are helping Southern Carton get
to where it couldn't before. "We're trying to hit the country music
industry," Dave says. "We're also looking at wineries and craft
breweries. We are targeting people who traditionally don't want
to order 1000 of this and 2000 of that; they want 50 of this and
100 of that. The OnsetX3 is a game changer for us."
UP TO SPEED, AND BEYOND...
One of the biggest fans of the OnsetX3 is Eugene Peek, digital
coordinator, who Dave says eats, sleeps, and breathes everything surrounding the flatbed printer. "He had to get up to speed
quickly, so he ran with it," Dave says. "He needed to learn it, and
he did. We picked the right man for the job."
Right now, Southern Carton is printing on glass and a lot of
acrylic. And right in line with its company mantra: "We don't just
want your order, we want your business," Southern Carton now
can give its customers what they want.
"We can take an order today and finish it in one day, provided
we have the material/substrate on-site," Peek says.
Take a recent job it completed for a client that wanted to put
images on a fiberboard. The job originally was riding an eightweek production timeline with a vendor in China. Unfortunately,
the job was continually put on backorder.
But when the client turned to Southern Carton, they stepped
up. Thanks to the OnsetX3, Southern Carton turned the job around
in a week, and with much better quality. "The client paid the same
price it paid its vendor in China, so it was a win/win/win."
The OnsetX3 also has helped Southern Carton grow from
its regional base. "That has been a great selling feature for us,"
Dave says. "[For example] somebody in San Francisco could ask
us to run a job that might typically be done 150 to 200 miles
from its plant. With the high speed output from the Onset, we
can ship to clients anywhere and everywhere."
Southern Carton recently completed a rush order: 200 corrugated sheets printed in the same day. "Our customers have now come
to expect quick turns," Dave says. "It's now a precedent. That's the
way we built our business. Our clients know what we can deliver on
the box side, so they expect us to deliver on other output, too."

Dave Kennedy, in Lewisburg, Tennessee, alongside his OnsetX3 UV flatbed press with three-quarter robotic
automaton and a sample of Southern Carton's printing white on glass.

fujifilminkjet.com

http://www.southerncarton.com http://www.fujifilminkjet.com

Big Picture - June/July 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Picture - June/July 2020