Softex Paper Inc. managed to increase capacity during 2020
The company was already working 24/7 before the pandemic, so in order to increase their capacity, they looked at new ways to improve the efficiency within their already sold-out capacity
With over 40 years of experience in the tissue converting industry, Softex Paper Inc. is a family company with over 400 employees across the US and the Caribbean which is proud to be supplying high-end quality paper. In the latest Talk Tissue, Brian Uzcategui talked to Maura Sousa, Marketing Manager at Softex Paper Inc. and they discussed the ins and outs of the company.
Softex’s flagship office is in Curacao and they also have locations in Aruba, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Florida and South Carolina. When they first expanded to Puerto Rico, in 1980, Softex became the first paper converting plant in the island.
In North America, the company opened shop in 2001 with a location in Palatka, Florida. The demand was just growing, and the company saw the opportunity to expand further, so in 2010 they opened another location in South Carolina.
“Florida is producing toilet paper, kitchen towels and napkins and here in South Carolina we’re producing paper towels and toilet paper,” says Maura. “Softex converts about 4,000 standard tons of paper a month. That’s about 600,000 cases worldwide from all of our locations with slightly more than half of that being produced in the US.”
The company is heavily involved in manufacturing Softex branded products and they are also doing private label products.
“In the US we are primarily producing private label, and, in the Caribbean, we produce more of our own labels which are Beginings, Noky, Swave and Ever Dry.”
It is clear for everyone that 2020 was a crazy year for toilet paper producers and it is continuing in 2021, Softex thanks its employees for helping the company through this difficult period.
“We just cannot be prouder of our production staff. They rallied around everyone for this time and we’re so grateful to them for getting us trough 2020 and keeping the world well supplied with paper products.”
The company was already working 24/7 before the pandemic, so in order to increase their capacity, they looked at new ways to improve the efficiency within their already sold-out capacity.
“We looked for ways to find every little extra hthat we could to max out the production that was so badly needed. Our team rallied together, we really cut down on how long changeovers take, we were extremally strategic on when and how we do changeovers and the efforts put in by the production staff has just been more than we could have hoped for.”
They ended the conversation by commenting on the improvements that Softex applied to its facilities in order to improve production capacity.
“Thankfully, even before 2020, the demand was growing so we were already in the process of increasing our capacity. Florida just added a new toilet paper and kitchen towel line and that’s going to add about a hundred thousand cases a month additionally that we can increase our capacity by (…) and by April 2021, we will be adding another napkin line to the Palatka facility as well.”
Check out the complete Talk Tissue with Maura Sousa, Marketing Manager at Softex Paper Inc.:
