"Our niche is about 20,000 pieces or less," RPM founder and president Joe Cavey told PrintWeek.

"We’ll do 5,000 and we can do 10,000 on a six-color 20" mid-size Komori press, so it’s very cost effective on the print end. And it’s also very cost effective on the die end because I work with the die-cutter on our current Heidelberg. It may not run as quick as other presses but it does a beautiful job."

RPM, which also does work in books, pamphlets, brochures and direct mail, now has about 50 new customers since getting into short-run packaging a year ago. Cavey said that traditionally most of his company’s business has been in the mid-Atlantic region, ranging from Pennsylvania to Virginia, but added: "Now with the short-run carton business I have clients as far away as California."

RPM has made the transition into packaging without a major investment in new equipment.

"I’ve always run a Komori press and from experience I know that Komori are made with oversize impression cylinders," Cavey said, adding that another way he’s attracting new packaging clients is with alternative substrates. 

"Many of the largest carton manufacturers, because they’re not offset printers and because they’ve never been asked to think outside the box, have no idea there are other substrates you can make cartons out of."

RPM, which does about $5 million in business annually, down from a peak of $9 million, also has a Canon 1318 for digital work, but Cavey said he’s currently discouraging packaging clients from digital.

"There’s a lot of thicker substrates that digital can’t run," he said. "Heidelberg does have a new press that can run on (thicker substrates), but it’s got to be $800,000 and I don’t know a lot of small commercial printers that can afford that."

The bulk of RPM’s new packaging clients are smaller cosmetic software firms, pharmaceuticals and candy-makers looking to create a splash on the retail shelves, but may only need 1,000 or 5,000 packages — as well as warehousing and fulfillment.

Like many commercial printers, RPM did make a move into digital, bringing in a Xerox iGen printer, only to the have the client it was purchased for, a large financial company, install its own iGens months later as it brought that printing work in-house.

Now with a leaner, if not meaner, operation that includes 28 employees, Cavey wants to take advantage of the fact there’s little US competition in the short-run carton business. He’s on the verge of launching a new website, BYOB (Build Your Own Box) to help smaller businesses cost-effectively design their own packaging.