Rock City Packaging GM on WestRock Merger, $15 Million Plan

 

In a report this past week by the Harrison Daily, in 1969, the Rock City Packaging plant opened in Harrison, Ark., USA. Today, until recently, residents knew the facility as being owned by RockTenn, but the folding box plant has a new name. RockTenn merged with MeadWestvaco in June 2015 and changed the name to WestRock (Richmond, Va., USA).

GM Jimmy Luyet said that "with wages, local supplies, services and taxes, our plant puts more than $15 million in the local economy each year. This merger was good for our company. Company wide, we went from producing $9 billion in sales to $16 billion now. We went from a nation-wide staff of 23,000 to 41,000."

Luyet said in the past, RockTenn ad 100 plants and now after the merger there are 230.

"The plants used to be only in the United States and Canada. Now we are worldwide with plants in Europe, South America, Japan, India, and more."

Three months after the merger, WestRock purchased 25% of a group from Mexico which allows the company to service Mexico and South America better.

"In January, we bought another company," he said, describing the advantageous conditions of being part of a new parent company with vast resources demonstrated by recent new purchasing powers helping to consolidate and integrate the WestRock paper packaging market. "We are growing so fast it’s hard to keep up with the acquisitions. I tell our staff here in Harrison that we used to be a big company, but now we are huge," he said, and then added "We [Rock City WestRock] get to look at opportunities that are new and different. We now own more paper product mills that allow us to grow our business in new areas of the market."

Luyet (pictured below in a photo with various product boxes made by the plant) said in the last four years the Harrison facility has grown in sales from a mid $50 million plant to $65 million in sales. The goal is $70 million for 2016.

 

 

"It’s our goal in 2018 to be an $80 million plant," he said. "We will be starting a multi-million dollar capital building project soon and hope to have it completed in June or July. This should help us make a 20% growth in our sales," he said.

"Most of our staff has to have some kind of computer skills to make everything work properly," he added. Luyet is very proud of the Harrison Folding team, having confidence in a safe work environment. "We have a great, safe plant and it’s our vision to keep the staff 100% invested and engaged. We have an extraordinary plant filled with extraordinary people who care about each other."

 

 

The Harrison folding carton plant (site's unfolded carton sheet line processing in above photo) is a 10 acre facility with a staff of 200 which produces four shifts that work 24/7. The folding carton products produced in Harrison are very diverse. Closer to home, they made the packaging for SC Seasoning (Cavender’s Greek Seasoning) with the seasoning plant only a few blocks from the WestRock location.

"We make ammunition boxes for multiple companies as well as check boxes and folios," he said. "We also make the boxes for a lot of automotive parts. We also have the old White-Rogers plant facility loaded with cartons and we lease additional warehouse space around town," Luyet added.

"We’ve been very fortunate with the merger. You just never know how transactions like that will turn out. But this has been great for us. We have more benefits and I feel like our company is in a better position today than it has been in the past," he concluded.

WestRock recovers and recycles 7 million tpy of fiber according to the report.