ABOUT THE COMPANY

Founded in 1962, Nelson Container is a Milwaukee-based, privately held sheet plant and package design company specializing in high-design, functional jumbo packaging and kit assemblies. Their core customer base includes high-SKU, low-volume businesses in Wisconsin that demand agility and precision. Known for their rapid turnaround, Nelson Container can deliver make-to-ship orders within 24 hours.

 

CHALLENGES

Nelson Container has partnered with Amtech Software since 2000, leveraging Imaginera and now EnCore, to centralize key office-level activities like customer quoting and estimating, order management, procurement, schedule line-ups, and accounting. To advance production efficiency, leaders at Nelson Container knew they needed to focus on production technology. They had goals such as automating data collection, streamlining estimated versus actual run time comparison, slashing new operator training durations, reducing reliance on paper/email and phone calls, simplifying and accelerating production planning, improving operators’ knowledge of run times and speeds, and illuminating machine problems for supervisors.

SOLUTION

In a recent webinar hosted by AICC, third-generation leader Christian Nelson joined Amtech’s Josh Wright and Eric Nolan to share their experience implementing two powerful solutions to address production challenges: Advanced Planning Board (APB) and ScoreKeeper.

 

Advanced Planning Board (APB)

APB is an automated scheduling system that simplifies the day-to-day tasks of production planners. It uses machine learning and optimization algorithms to dynamically schedule jobs across multiple machine centers, reducing manual intervention and improving load balancing. The system prioritizes customer commitments, minimizes idle time, and enables planners to focus on exceptions rather than routine tasks.

Glancing at Advanced Planning Board on his screen, Christian Nelson addressed a question about how much time their scheduler is saving by saying, “We’re saving about 81.26% by automation on its own. And we can see exactly which machines we need to work on. Those machines are the ones that are more complex routings, they require more hands-on aptitude.
But for the rest of our machines – we’re running at 95, 96, 100% 100% – not much effort. And again that’s all set up on the front end so we can see these jobs without having to monitor, move, change; it just does it for us. And if there’s something special we can go in, adjust, move with the flow.”

 

ScoreKeeper

ScoreKeeper is a machine-agnostic manufacturing execution system (MES) that connects directly to shop floor equipment to automatically capture real-time production data. It provides visibility into machine states, setup times, run speeds, and downtime—without relying on manual data entry. The system motivates crews with performance dashboards and helps supervisors make data-driven decisions to improve efficiency and reduce waste.

When asked about the difference that ScoreKeeper makes to Nelson Container, Christian recounted, “It’s helped us immensely”. He continued, “One of the things that’s overlooked is your operators may be doing their best to capture data every day. Sometimes they just forget. Automated capturing just helps them do their day-to-day jobs so they can focus on making good product, quickly, effectively and safely instead of trying to remember ‘oh man why did I go down’ or ‘shoot I need to go back into setup’.

The system lets that happen, they can focus on what they need to do. These applications have made things so much smoother in operations and keeps us moving faster and better so we can keep competing against our competitors and be successful overall.”

BENEFITS & IMPACT

With APB and ScoreKeeper, Nelson Container has achieved:

  • Over 80% planning time savings through scheduling automation
  • High machine utilization with minimal manual intervention
  • Improved operator focus and efficiency including 50% reduction in new operator data entry training
  • Real-time visibility and resolutions of production performance issues
  • Streamlined operations that support rapid turnaround and competitive positioning

By implementing Amtech’s Advanced Planning Board and ScoreKeeper, Nelson Container has measurably enhanced its production efficiency, visibility, and agility. These solutions have empowered the team to streamline operations, reduce planning time, and maintain high machine utilization—reinforcing their reputation for rapid turnaround and competitive excellence in the packaging industry.

 

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