Primarily because of raw materials, corrugated paper in the Far East and especially in China doesn’t measure up to the specs U.S. companies demand. But there are signs that companies in China are working on the problem. For more details on this topic see Packaging World, April ’99, p. 52 or packworld.com/go/corrugated.
This was the conclusion from comments by participants in a roundtable discussion held last year by Boxboard Containers Intl. with the assistance of PW. The members talking about corrugated paper specifications in the Far East were Leo Mankovich, senior packaging engineer at Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, and Andrew Kerr, packaging technician with Eastman Kodak, Rochester, NY.
“One of our major problems in China involved securing the proper paper for corrugated board,” Mankovich reported. “In some cases we are having paper shipped from the U.S. to China, but that becomes quite expensive.
“We have also used some of China’s domestic material that, in some cases, is 100-percent recycled paper. To make it function properly, we have to use a much heavier weight than we use in the U.S.”
Eastman Kodak has had a similar experience, Kerr said. “We have people on assignment in China to set up the packaging for the factories we are building there. We are seeing the same kinds of issues that Leo mentioned.
“The local Chinese board does not have the quality we want,” Kerr agreed. “We are working with the Chinese companies to help them understand and improve the quality of their materials. And they seem very willing to try.”
Anheuser-Busch has also inaugurated improvement projects with its primary corrugated supplier in China.
“One of the projects is to improve primarily the tear strength of the sheet they produce,” said Mankovich. “In addition, we’d like them to introduce coatings on the outer face of the container.
“One of our current corrugated suppliers is building a brand new plant that we toured there,” reported Mankovich. “They didn’t have much equipment installed yet, but they are going with a full corrugator as we know it here in the U.S. and finishing equipment the same way. So they are striving for improvements, and it looks like quality should go up.”
