Top

“Because the team is well-educated, well-trained and know what they are talking about, there’s less chance for communication errors. We are craftspeople at heart, and want to make sure we turn out quality products. We’re not a huge company,” Pereira says. “We’re a small company with ambitious goals.”

How to Improve Quality

The CEO is very familiar with the company, since he grew up with it. When you’re curled up on a pallet for a nap near the presses while your dad works, you know the company is a big part of your life.

“I’ve been in this since I was a little kid,” Pereira says. “Printing is in my blood.” Pereira took over the business his father founded—and aimed to make it even better. And it seems he’s done just that. Customers rave about the company’s attention to detail, responsiveness, friendly atmosphere and investment in new technology.

The industry has changed a lot since Pereira joined the company in 1996. Technology has advanced, with more automation and inspection components. Compared to the old days, by the time the operator could see a printed sheet, 500 had already been produced. Today, machines see everything in real time. New technologies alert staff if there is an issue. Customers have tightened their requirements as well, but manufacturers and their equipment have adapted to meet these demands.

One of those goals is improving quality. For other plants looking to improve quality, Pereira emphasizes documentation. “Documenting your processes I think is crucial to anything. If you don’t have a documented process, you don’t have something you can duplicate when you recruit and onboard new talent.”

And of course, stay up to date on technology and software options. “Have the tools to help you manage from a quality perspective,” Pereira says. “You don’t need to have something super expensive, you just need to have something that works.”

This allows for traceability and tracking trends. “Identifying trends proactively is super important, you get to determine root causes early on and take action to remediate them immediately. These tools provide visibility into your organization.”

“I really think it’s about having procedures and checklists in place,” says Ashley Azevedo, director of operations. “We’re ISO certified, everyone understands the proper procedures. We’re double-checking and triple-checking everything. We take a lot of pride in delivering the highest quality product.”

Problems Solved

If an incident does occur, it is resolved quickly. Pereira recalled one such case. “We faced a situation where our material supplier altered the material without providing prior notification. This non-conformance was identified during our incoming inspection, and we promptly issued a SCAR to the supplier. Additionally, we immediately informed our customer about the change and initiated a material change request with them. While it’s not ideal to notify the customer of a potential material change on short notice, this incident highlights that our processes and procedures are effective in preventing non-compliant products from reaching the customer and addressing issues proactively.”

The company aims to address issues right away, Pereira says. “One of our customers informed us that some of their recent orders were short on quantity. These products are die-cut, weighed, and packed in specific quantities per carton. Initially, we relied on the scale counter to set the piece count for packing and shipping. After receiving the customer’s feedback, we issued an internal CAPA to investigate the issue. Through the process, we identified the root cause: slight variations in material weight were causing inconsistencies in the weighed batches.

“To address this, we revised our SOPs to include spot checks for validating the accuracy and consistency of weighed batches. Additionally, we implemented a tagging machine in the die-cutting process to automatically count and insert a tag into each die-cut stack, ensuring accurate batch counts for packing. While we’re not proud that the non-conformances occurred, we are proud of our proactive response.

“By following our CAPA process, we were able to identify the root cause, implement corrective actions, and prevent future occurrences.”

Customers Approve

Joseph Barkow of J3 Packaging LLC previously worked with another packaging company and had some issues. He’d heard about Spectrum from other clients and reached out to give them a try. They haven’t looked back.

In the 13 years that Barkow has been working with Spectrum, he couldn’t recall a single issue or reject with any of their projects. Even when his customers would give him a lot of different items and ask how to put it all together, within a few days Pereira came up with six different designs, which made the customer happy —“they absolutely loved it,” Barkow recalled.

“The company was great, they still are,” Barkow says. “They are very easy to communicate with, a lot of ideas if you’re not 100% sure what you want. They’ll work with you for the price points you want.”

With Pereira growing up in the industry, Barkow says he always had some good ideas.

Many of the things Barkow works with Spectrum for are in biotech, often involving vials of varying sizes. Spectrum came up with “ingenious ways of doing things and still keeping it compact and as small as possible.”

Barkow says the quality of the staff is part of their success and being ISO certified shows that they hold themselves to a higher level.

“If somebody hears your name, you want people to say, ‘I’ve only heard good things about them,’” he says.

High quality obviously doesn’t just happen; it takes a concerted team effort.

“This comes from the top down,” Barkow says, and being treated well by upper management. “You work a little harder, take pride in your work. It’s a feeling, you want to do something for the person who’s taking care of you,” Barkow said. “They take care of their people, from the designers to customer service to even the drivers doing their deliveries.”

In addition, Barkow says he likes working with Spectrum because of the friendly atmosphere. “It doesn’t matter who you talk to, they’re all friendly, and everything is done in a timely fashion. Even if you have a special project that needs to get through quicker than normal, they’re all in to figure out how to get it when you need it. They are all in there trying to make everybody happy.”

Early Mornings Dedicated to Quality

When Praveen Gupta joined Stephen Gould in 2016, he was working with a medical device customer that was receiving 99.8% quality levels. The company wanted 100%. Stephen Gould had tried to address the problem before without success. Spectrum was their manufacturing partner. Pereira worked with Gupta and together they came up with a new testing protocol. They developed a new testing device and eventually eliminated the problem.

“This required a lot of measurements,” says Gupta, director of quality at Stephen Gould. “I saw Shawn coming to the office at 6 o’clock and taking all the measurements. That shows me his commitment to quality.” Gupta told him, “If you guys want, I can help you implement a quality system and quality things. He was totally for it. This showed me he was quality minded. He understood, quality is business. Without the quality there is no business. If you take care of quality, business is taken care of. That’s what I have learned, and he emulates that.”

Gupta nominated Spectrum for this award. “I am all for promoting manufacturing, identifying good plants that I work with and other suppliers too,” Gupta says. “Manufacturing still matters and we need it.”