Yellowstone Plastics came to us with a familiar problem: their mounting room was the bottleneck. Press utilization was below target, changeovers were slow, and operators were frustrated. The leadership team knew something had to change.
The starting state
Their mounting room had grown organically over 15 years. Sleeves were stored on a mix of static racks, leaning against walls, and on whatever pallets were available. Plate inventory was in cardboard boxes on shelving that did not match their workflow. Anilox rollers were stored in a separate area entirely.
Average changeover time was 38 minutes. Sleeve search time accounted for 8–12 minutes of that.
What we changed
We installed a SleevePodz mobile carriage system sized for their inventory and growth plan, plus a PlatePodz flat box storage system colocated with their mounting station. We added dedicated anilox roller carts so rollers could move with the job rather than living in a separate area.
Total install time was three days, run on weekends with no impact on production.
The results
- Average changeover time dropped from 38 minutes to 23 minutes — a 40% reduction.
- Sleeve search time dropped to under 90 seconds.
- Floor space reclaimed: approximately 600 sq ft.
- Sleeve damage incidents in the first year: zero.
The number that mattered most
The 40% changeover reduction translated to roughly 4 additional press hours per week. At their average press economics, that paid back the entire project in under 11 months.
The mounting room is no longer the bottleneck.
The Flexopodz Team
Purpose-built mounting room solutions for flexographic printing.