• Accel

• Location: Columbus, Ohio • Size: 250 employees • Business: Packaging design and manufacture

For Accel CEO Tara Abraham, it all started with a simple idea. While working for the retailer Bath and Body works in 1995, she noticed that the quality of product packaging used varied dramatically from product to product. She knew she could make better packaging and with the support of Bath and Body Work's vice president, she founded her own packaging contract manufacturing company, Accel in Columbus, Ohio. Almost 15 years later, Accel is a small company that thinks big—with 250 employees it has branched out from making packaging for just retail products to the pharmaceutical and automotive sectors as well.

Abraham says one of the driving philosophies that has led to Accel's success is that no department is an island. Everyone has their specialty, but the best way to get cost-effective packaging that's designed for manufacturability is to have everyone working together at the same table. No one is stuck in a silo. "We have a unique approach of blending all the departments—everyone has to have autonomy, but [that approach] is critical through the entire supply chain organization," she says. "If someone drops the ball it has a cascading effect."

One of the company's main goals is to design and manufacture efficient packaging— meaning it is easy to remove from the product and uses as little material as possible—while still protecting the integrity of the product. It's a delicate balance, but with procurement and design engineers all working together, Accel has struck the balance well. As an example Abraham says a client in the personal care industry recently approached Accel with a product that was normally wrapped in all sorts of excess packaging, including corrugated and bubble wrap. After a few weeks of research, Accel's engineering team found out a way to ship the product safely using only one specific grade of shrink band, which eliminated 82% of the product's original packaging bulk and cut down on unwrapping time by 58%.

In another example, Accel's development team figured out a way to replace the shrink wrap, glue and tape packaging on automotive snap rings with a reusable clamp, which cut packaging waste as well as labor time from five minutes to 10 seconds.

"Procurement and contract manufacturing go hand-in-hand," says Abraham. "And procurement's work with engineering on that project was an example of how a collective effort can minimize costs and maximize profitability."

There's an added dimension of complexity in making packaging for the retail sector, Abraham notes, as packaging plays such a pivotal role in selling products on retailer's shelves. When it comes time to create packaging, the aesthetics play just as important a role as the durability and the cost. Accel's graphic prototyping and engineering are all located on the same site in Ohio, which allows all departments to collaborate at once on a design for fast turnaround. Abraham invites clients to bring their own staff with them to prototyping meetings, which also speeds up the entire process.

"Most companies will have a spec sheet and throw it on a production line, but I saw value in working with clients' departments directly to make sure we design packaging for manufacturability," Abraham says. With a cross-functional team present at the prototyping stage, all the major bases are covered. Procurement plays a critical role in making sure any elaborately designed packaging still makes sense from a cost standpoint. "We can come up with the most beautiful thing, but if it's not cost-efficient it doesn't matter," says Abraham. "You have to make sure procurement is involved up front so you know what your budget is."

While communication flows freely between departments at Accel, information-sharing can streamline the decision-making process. Abraham says the company uses SAP warehouse management software to track real-time inventory levels, and every department as well as every client is on the same system in order to generate reports instantly and call up inventory and shipment information as they are updated.

That kind of inter-connected, efficient communication has paid off in shipment-cost savings. The company does specialty packaging work with a network of manufacturers in China but, as oil and freight rates continue to soar, Accel is focusing more on domestic production. And in one case five months ago, the U.S.-based manufacturer beat a quote from China by nearly $120,000 when all the costs were factored in.

"To be competitive you have to have a global reach, you can't just be in one location, but there are advantages in doing business here in the U.S.," says Abraham.