Friday update

The weekend is nearly here, finally, but it doesn't look terrific value in terms of watching cricket. England are now all out for just over 100 runs. Geoffrey Boycott no doubt will suggest both his mother and grandmother could each do better than that.

Anyway, I'm at work watching the Test on Sky Player with the Zund machine working its way through some large sheets of board. Completely run out of time this week, and from next Monday I think I will be even busier.

I had a very good meeting yesterday with the importer of a product called Kraftpak. This is a fully virgin hard- and soft-wood fibreboard imported from a mill in Charlestown USA and can give your product a class-leading natural image that will be a winner with your customers. It is certified by the USA Food and Drug Administration for direct food contact.

It gives a traditionally American look for industrial or consumer packaging: the possibilities this can offer you are limited only by your imagination. For an idea of what this board can achieve, please get in touch via info@bectechpackaging.com. We have a huge range of ideas and samples, and will be happy to discuss your requirements.

This product gives you access to a potentially huge new market as there are very few people converting this grade in the UK. Combined with the flexibility of our Zund digital diecutter we are able to convert this for small or large production runs of virtually any type of box or folding carton.

Kraftpak is also able to be directly lithographically printed, which gives a massive cost advantage over flexographically printing microflute corrugated. If you've ever had a quote you'll know how expensive the stereos for flexographic printing can be. Debossing, embossing and hot foil blocking on Kraftpak can lend your product a distinct advantage over your competitors. The versatility of Kraftpak offers new opportunities for your packaging.

I'm back from a fully relaxing holiday in the Peak District, recharged and ready for a decent summer. Not planning to go away again until maybe September or October, but I also aim to make the most of the summer by not working every weekend!

I have recently finished a project on time and on budget for a new customer where we are the only packaging company in the country able to carry out this work without using a large format diecutter. I am very pleased with this as it confirms that the investment in the Zund cutting table would open up a lot of new markets. 

The box in question used almost the entire cutting area as the blank size was 1650 x 2150mm. Final dimensions of the box were 1880 x 560 x 108 mm, in FEFCO code 0426 and using a 200K/B/200T+175s/c fluting for those who are interested in such things! I know we wouldn't have been able to do this without the Zund cutting table, and I was pleased to help our customer avoid nearly £300 in diecut tooling. Hopefully this project will open doors to more work at this very specialised end of the market.

With many companies going bankrupt, speculators see this as an ideal time to pick up bargains. I am no different, as I managed to pick up a conference table and chairs and an almost new Apple G5 MacPro computer. This came loaded with stacks of design software such as Adobe's Creative Suite 3 & 4 and Quark. In all, I guess I have about £7000 worth of kit for £700. A proper credit-crunched sized bargain! 

This will allow a more streamlined approach to our expanding design-led packaging department and will free up the existing design computer to only drive the Zund digital diecutting table. 

Lions rugby

Tomorrow sees the British and Irish Lions test squad being announced. The last tour was in New Zealand, where I was fortunate enough to be fore the second and third tests. I hope the tests are more competitive this time, but I cannot predict which players will make the squad.

Legends such as Will Greenwood, Keith Wood and Stuart Barnes cannot agree. Is it because they are looking for different things, or that nobody has really set the tour alight so far?

I would pick Jenkins, Mears, Vickery, Shaw, O'Connell, Croft, Williams, Heaslip, Phillips, Jones, Monye, Roberts, O'Driscoll, Bowe and Byrne. Bench will be Sheridan, Rees, Wyn-Jones, Wallace, Ellis, O'Gara and Fitzgerald.

Shaw is streets ahead of the other locks due to his physicality and will not take a backward step against Botha at the front of the lineout. He also has a better handling and open play game. Ieuan Evans writing in today's Telegraph agrees, as an aside, he played with Shaw back on the 1997 tour to South Africa.

Croft I imagine will shade Wallace on the blindside, but this could go either way. Sheridan hasn't done enough, and has had two games in short succession, neither of which have proved he is on form, while Jenkins clearly is.

O'Gara will be on the bench, again I guess this will be a very close call, but there's really no other kicker other than O'Gara.

Gordon, Miliband, Mandelson, Twenty20

So, I woke up this morning with the feint hope that Gordon Brown would have fallen on his sword after his meeting with the Labour mob last night. As ever with our great leader, I am disappointed.

It seems that the conspirators are a little weak and divided. I wonder what the outcome would have been if they - Purnell, Flint et al - had spoken to each other.

Still, this morning on the Today programme, Miliband didn't really hide his assessment that Gordon isn't the best man to lead either the brothers or the country. He is about two years behind the rest of the country with that view.

Lord Mandelson is the glue holding the cabinet in place and Gordon as prime minister. I hope one unguarded comment from him will bring the whole house of cards - or charade, depending on your analogy - down.

One bit of good news, Australia are out of the Twenty20 world cup. Tempered by England's defeat to Holland last week. I didn't even know they played cricket in Holland.

Monday stuff

It's always a struggle getting into gear for Monday morning, but today was a bit easier - as there is only 10 working days until a week off. Catriona and I cannot wait, it seems much longer than three months since we were skiing in Val d'Isere. Well, Catriona was, I was not, as I broke my arm.

We both had a very relaxing weekend, watching Lions vs Cheetahs and England vs Argentina on Saturday, neither of which were worth much positive comment. Bluewater yesterday was tyically busy and full of society's dross. We did, however, find enough time to visit Lisa and James to check out their new kittens and watch Yasmina win The Apprentice. I hoped Lord Sugar, as I suppose we will soon have to call him, would pick her, although it seems the rest of the country would have picked Kate.

I also picked up a reconditioned platen-type hot foil blocking machine, which will allow further expansion into the presentation packaging market. I'm also working on fabricating a modification to our Zund flatbed digital diecutter, which will mean that corrugated sheets sit a lot flatter and can be cut a lot more accurately.

No netball with Catriona tonight, as the weather isn't particularly great I won't object to sorting the shopping out.

Wednesday update

This week just keeps getting tougher, to paraphrase MasterChef. Strictly speaking, it's not actually tougher, just busier. As if a day out visiting suppliers and checking out a new machine yesterday wasn't enough, I got back to plenty of orders, that as ever, seem to be urgent!

Bit of a long journey, heading from Crawley, to Corby, then to Colchester. I must have racked up about 350/400 miles, but got back by 3pm and was straight back into the office for some production and quoting.

But, the good news is that Tuesday wasn't wasted, as our new hot foil blocking and embossing machine is arriving on Saturday. This will significantly expand our capability, and means that we don't have to subcontract out a lot of work. Also arriving soon will be a sheet-to-sheet gluer/laminator and pressure roller. This is only a small version of the industrial specification one I'll be getting around the beginning of 2010. I can now offer customers requiring presentation packaging a fully in-house service.

When this is teamed with our Zund digital diecutter, we will have possibly the most flexible - and cost effective - method of short run production for high quality presentation packaging in the UK. You will be able to specify a box and artwork to your own requirements, and we can produce 1 or 1,000 units without the need for expensive diecut tooling.

Please email on jonathan@bectechpackaging.com if you need any more information about the products and services we can offer you.

Meanwhile, holiday is booked for 22 June for a week, but we have no idea where we will be going. I hope that I won't miss either of the first or second Lions tests on 20 and 27 June due to holiday. Leaving early tonight to catch the game between the Lions and Lions - yes, really - it looks like we have a strong team. I did also think that on Saturday, and we very nearly got turned over.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Looking at the date of my last post, I cannot believe it has been over five weeks. May was full of bbqs and spending lots of time outside over the two bank holidays, as well as plenty of work, just for a change.

I've been busy sorting out all the prices and wording for placing our products on ebay. I'm constantly amazed at some of the prices other packaging suppliers try to charge!

Due to our flexible manufacturing technique, we are able to significantly reduce our customers' packaging costs. For example, one of our competitors sell boxes for over 60 percent more than our prices, even before they add VAT at 15 percent!

I guess I have put approximately 15 different sizes of packaging boxes on ebay so far. I aim to put many more on in the next few weeks. Please visit our site at http://stores.ebay.co.uk/bectech-packaging for some great discounts on postal boxes.

I've also managed to find a new courier to deliver our goods. Over the next month I'll be looking at www.myhermes.co.uk to see how they compare against our existing couriers. They certainly compete on price alone.

Next up will be sorting out our stand-alone website at www.bectechpackaging.com, although I'm aiming to get everything running smoothly on ebay first before doing this.

Over the next year, I'm also aiming to increase the types of products and services to our customers. I am always being asked for short runs of high quality presentation packaging, display and point-of-sale/purchase products. Our facilities here are ideally suited to providing our customers with cost-effective solutions in these markets.

So far, sales have been going well, again keeping us busy at work. I am looking forward to a well deserved holiday from 22 June, as we're not skiing, I shouldn't come back with another broken arm. Not sure where we'll be going, I wouldn't mind going to the south of France again.