We spoke with Mr. Marko Despot, director of the company GPI Istra Ltd., which is one of the leading manufacturers of packaging in the region.
Last year, the ownership structure of GPI Istra changed. Who are the new owners and what does this change bring to GPI Istra?
After Graphic Packaging International (GPI) took over the AR Packaging group in November 2021, the integration process began in all the group’s factories, including our factory in Kanfanar. As part of the integration process, we are rebranding our factory, so our company, which was known under the name Istragrafika, and until recently operated under the name AR Packaging Croatia, changed its name to GPI Istra d.d..
Graphic Packaging International is a group that has over 100 years of history. It has over 140 packaging factories, of which over 30 are in Europe. In addition, the group also operates 8 cardboard factories in the USA. We employ over 24,000 employees.
Graphic Packaging International is also the owner of over 2,700 patents. The focus is on innovations aimed at preserving the environment and environmentally friendly solutions that help reduce plastic waste. One of these innovations found its place in our production facility in Kanfanar. It is a cardboard solution called Paperseal, which reduces the impact of plastic by 90%, and which offers an alternative to plastic tiles and MAP washers. The production of this product from our factory is 100% exported. We hope that it will soon conquer the Croatian market also.
So, this change brought us the opportunity to open new markets through new products. Thanks to this, for the first time more than 50% of our revenues were generated from exports.
Who or what contributes to competitiveness and productivity in the company GPI Istra?
Our employees and their skills and knowledge contribute the most to our competitiveness and productivity, in which we have additionally invested in 2022 organizing several professional educations.
In 2020, we also made a large investment in a new printing press – Heidelberg, which is equipped with the most modern technology and the ability to print in 8 colors and two varnishes in single pass. It is a hybrid machine that has the ability to print with UV and conventional colors. With it our productivity has been significantly increased
. In addition to these large investments, we continuously invest in process improvement and automation. We pay a lot of attention to the safety of our employees at work, so we continuously invest in improvements related to safety at work.
How automated is your production today? In which production segments do you see the possibility of modernization?
How automated production is depends on which angle we look at it. If we look from the aspect of the local market, then we are a more automated production, but if we compare ourselves to some much larger packaging factories from Western Europe, then I would say that we are medium automated.
Possibilities for further modernization are related mainly to logistics around machines such as automatic pallet changes. We have already invested a lot in smart software solutions related to print quality management and the preparation of graphic solutions. This is an area in which we plan to invest in the next year as well.
What are your plans for the next years – will GPI Istria increase its business volume?
After strong growth, especially exports in 2022, we have ambitious plans for 2023 as well. With the clear goal of providing quality service to existing customers, we also open up new customers and therefore plan to grow our business volume.
We continue with daily investments, both in new machines and software solutions, and in improving the conditions of our workers.
