Lithotype
Flexible Packaging Built for the Customer’s Reality

A flexible package has to perform long after it leaves the factory. It must protect the product through the customer’s operation and distribution network before reaching the end consumer.

For Lithotype, understanding those demands is where the manufacturing process begins. The custom flexible packaging manufacturer has built its approach around a simple premise: understanding what a customer’s package needs to do before deciding how to make it.

Lithotype is more than a supplier producing to specification. It is a manufacturing partner that works with customers to address the practical demands behind every packaging requirement. That can mean evaluating barrier properties, sealing performance, durability, graphics, filling equipment, distribution conditions and shelf life before determining an appropriate solution.

The company approaches packaging decisions as a complete system. A material selected to reduce usage, for example, still has to protect the product. A package designed for visual appeal must also perform reliably on customer equipment. Cost, durability, manufacturability and sustainability must work together. A product leaving the Midwest in winter may encounter different conditions before reaching the West Coast, making distribution part of the package’s performance equation.

“We still have to protect this product. It has to seal properly, survive distribution, and then you have to make sure that it runs efficiently through production and makes economic sense,” says Wardell Taylor, President of Lithotype.

Lithotype works with customers and material suppliers to evaluate those competing requirements. Films, inks, adhesives, coatings, lamination and converting conditions must function together while supporting the product’s protection needs and manufacturing requirements. The company’s printing, laminating and converting capabilities provide flexibility in determining how a package should be produced.

That flexibility also responds to changing business conditions. Forecasts shift, SKU counts grow and product launches move faster, creating a need for manufacturing approaches that can adapt without forcing customers into unnecessarily large production runs.

Built Around Accountability

Lithotype’s employee-owned structure is closely tied to its customer relationships. Ownership creates a direct connection between individual responsibility and company performance. When a customer faces an urgent requirement or manufacturing challenge, the response can involve prepress, purchasing, scheduling, press operations, quality, maintenance, converting and shipping.

The company’s smaller structure gives customers more direct access to people involved in decisions. The accessibility helps Lithotype respond when priorities change or lead times tighten. For Taylor, being fast and flexible does not mean bypassing processes. It means bringing the right people together, communicating quickly and adjusting priorities without compromising quality.

Quality, meanwhile, is built into the manufacturing process rather than inspected into the product at the end. Lithotype combines technology with experienced operators, documented specifications, preventive maintenance and quality controls. It monitors critical characteristics, documents abnormalities and investigates underlying causes to support corrective and preventive action.

Partnership also depends on trust. When something goes wrong, customers need open communication and a partner willing to investigate the problem, make difficult decisions, improve and remain accountable through resolution.

Experience with a Partner’s Mindset

Lithotype combines decades of flexible packaging printing and converting experience with manufacturing breadth and accessibility. Customers can engage with operations, quality, technical resources, purchasing and leadership when an opportunity or issue requires broader collaboration.

The company also views responsible manufacturing as extending beyond material selection. Improving operational efficiency, reducing manufacturing waste and lowering scrap can support sustainability while preserving product protection and performance.

Looking ahead, Lithotype plans to build on the qualities customers value most: quality, reliability, speed, flexibility, technical support and competitive total cost. It also sees growth in helping existing customers with more of their packaging portfolio by understanding future launches, supply-chain concerns, sustainability objectives and technical challenges.

Ultimately, Lithotype wants to be the company customers call when they need help developing a package, improving an existing structure, resolving a technical issue, responding to changing demand or meeting a difficult timeline. Its goal is to make it easier for customers to do business, protect their brands and succeed in their markets.