A Rock Island company is celebrating the addition of “game-changing” machinery that will help it produce more and better packaging.
Liberty Packaging, 3402 78th Ave. West, Rock Island, hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday, May 12, with the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce to mark the milestone. That event attracted about 75 people from the business community and the company.
Liberty Packaging, which employs more than 200 people, makes a wide range of corrugated products from brown shipping boxes to sophisticated die-cut boxes, graphic packaging and promotional materials to meet packaging needs.
It now has a new piece of machinery that will help the company create more of those packaging materials faster and more efficiently. The machine, a Falcon FP50 Flexo Folder Gluer, represents a $5 million to $7 million investment for the company.
“It’s a huge game-changer for our facility. … It’s a very significant piece of equipment for us,” said Alex Michel, plant manager for Liberty Packaging.
During Friday’s ceremony, the Falcon was put to work, creating boxing materials as members of the business community watched and asked questions about the equipment. The new machine, simply put, can produce more packaging materials at a faster rate compared to the older machinery at the plant.
For instance, the Falcon can produce about 21,000 boxes an hour, compared to about 8,000 boxes on older equipment. The setup time also is much faster – it took about 30 minutes to set up the older equipment. The Falcon is ready to go in one to five minutes.
The faster production could mean more sales, more clients, and at some point more employees at Liberty, company officials said.
The Falcon FP50 arrived at the Rock Island company on Feb. 14 and was put into full production around Feb. 23, Mr. Michel added.
The plant manager also praised his Liberty employees and the team of specialists that set up the Falcon in the Rock Island plant.
“They took this new technology, this new machinery. They grabbed it and ran with it,” he added.
Members of the business community also praised the company and its employees for the improvements.
“Thank you for all the work you do,” LaDrina Wilson, the chamber’s CEO, said during the ceremonies.
Liberty Packaging has grown from a small family business to more than 10 packaging plants. Today, it is part of Liberty Diversified International, employing nearly 2,000 employees in 18 facilities, 10 states and Mexico, according to information from the company.
