In six months, SunEdge Packaging—an Asia-based folding-carton converter—moved average waste from 11–13% to 6–7% and lifted FPY from the high 70s to above 90% across two very different product lines. Based on insights from packola projects we’ve benchmarked, the team focused on disciplined color control, substrate specification, and repeatable finishing. The work spanned food-safe takeout packs and export-ready luxury cartons, and it wasn’t a straight line. Week two felt like a setback when ΔE stayed above 3.5 on a key red. Week seven was the turning point.
Here’s where it gets interesting: improvements weren’t driven by a single new press. They came from hybridizing what they already had—flexo for volume, digital for short-run and variable work—then tightening control on inks, curing, and finishing windows.
Let me back up for a moment. SunEdge runs seasonal promotions with 60–90 SKU bursts, plus steady premium runs for boutique brands. The approach had to work in real production, not a lab. We documented every step—substrate lots, ink batches, lamp hours, changeovers—because without data, you’re guessing. The timeline below captures what actually changed, when, and why it stuck.
Company Overview and History
SunEdge Packaging operates out of Penang, Malaysia, serving Food & Beverage and Cosmetics across Southeast Asia. Monthly volume ranges from 2–3 million cartons across 80+ SKUs, with seasonal spikes. Their press room combines Flexographic Printing for long-run folding carton and Digital Printing for short-run, on-demand work. Substrates lean on FSC-certified Paperboard and CCNB for price-sensitive lines, with a growing slate of specialty boards for premium packs.
Historically, the company ran stable color on single-SKU food cartons but struggled when SKUs multiplied and when shifting between flexo and digital. That gap widened when they added a premium candle brand for export to Japan and Singapore, where buyers scrutinize color, soft-touch, and foil detail under retail lighting. The internal goal was tight ΔE control and a predictable Changeover Time even with multi-process finishing.
The shop culture is hands-on. Operators keep physical swatch books, and supervisors track FPY and make-ready time on whiteboards. We kept that spirit but added press-side spectrophotometry, job recipes, and a single reference condition (G7-based) to align Offset-like aims on both flexo and digital.
Quality and Consistency Issues
The pain points were specific. Cross-technology color drift was the loudest: ΔE often sat at 3.6–4.2 between flexo and digital lots, especially on warm reds and deep blacks. Registration on complex dielines led to soft edges after Lamination and Foil Stamping, and lamination blisters surfaced when humidity climbed. On the food line, water pickup during Varnishing occasionally weakened glue seams under heat in delivery fleets.
On the food side, a new line of custom chinese take out boxes demanded Food-Safe Ink and reliable Gluing that survived condensate and handling. Flexo plates carried microtype for allergen icons, so press gain had to be predictable. On premium work, soft-touch coatings scuffed under transit vibration, and foil microtext lost definition when UV-LED curing was too aggressive ahead of stamping.
But there’s a catch: press swaps were frequent. Short runs jumped to digital to hit deadlines, while long runs stayed on flexo. That meant any color target had to be press-agnostic, and make-readies couldn’t balloon. Changeovers ran 45–60 minutes with frequent anilox and ink swaps. Operators felt the squeeze, and FPY hovered around 78–82% during peak months.
Solution Design and Configuration
The team moved to a hybrid approach: Flexographic Printing with Water-based Ink for food cartons, Digital Printing with UV-LED Ink for premium lots, both calibrated to a common G7 neutral print density curve. We set a ΔE target of ≤2.0 for brand colors and ≤2.5 for secondary accents. Inline spectrophotometers logged measurements every 250 sheets on flexo and every 100 prints on digital. Job recipes captured anilox, impression, and curing setpoints to keep Changeover Time in the 20–25 minute window.
Substrate specs were tightened. Food cartons standardized on 300–350 gsm FSC Paperboard with certified Food-Safe Ink and Varnishing tuned to maintain bond strength in Gluing. Premium cartons—the custom luxury candle boxes—used 350 gsm Folding Carton with Soft-Touch Coating applied after Foil Stamping to protect the leaf edges. We staged Foil Stamping and Embossing before soft-touch to avoid edge softening and to retain crisp relief. Where metallized effects were needed, we ran Spot UV rather than full flood to minimize scuff zones.
If you’re wondering how to make custom boxes that hold color and structure across processes, start with a single reference condition, then lock your substrate, ink system, and finishing order. In this project, that looked like: define G7 aims, qualify two boards, pin Water-based Ink for food and UV-LED Ink for premium, validate curing energy with on-press dosimetry, and only then finalize die-lines. For stakeholder sign-off, marketing ordered a small prototype batch via an online custom box platform—after scanning packola reviews and using a packola coupon code—to validate finishing sequences and tactile feel before capex on tooling.
Quantitative Results and Metrics
Fast forward six months. Median ΔE on brand colors moved from 3.6–4.2 to 1.8–2.1 across both print technologies. FPY settled in the 91–93% range during stable weeks, dipping to 88–90% during monsoon humidity spikes—still above the previous baseline. Waste Rate tracked at 6–7% on mixed SKU weeks, with make-ready sheets down by roughly 20–25% versus the original baseline. Throughput rose by 18–22% on constrained machines because recipes reduced trial pulls and rework.
Changeover Time stabilized at 22–25 minutes for most jobs (from 45–60 minutes), though complex foil + emboss + soft-touch stacks occasionally stretched to 30–35 minutes. kWh/pack trended down by 8–12% due to leaner make-ready and fewer reprints. ppm defects on premium cartons fell into the 700–900 range from above 1,500, primarily by fixing curing and stamping order. The payback period, considering training, metrology, and plate/foil changes, models in the 12–15 month band. Compliance stayed intact: food cartons were aligned to EU 1935/2004 guidance for exported lots and held up in migration testing with Water-based Ink.
This system isn’t universal—seasonal humidity and operator turnover can still push variability, and specialty foils require periodic retuning. Still, the data holds across busy weeks, and the shop now uses these controls as standard work. We’ve seen similar patterns echoed in field notes from packola projects, which helped validate the timeline and the finishing order that made the gains stick.
