flexo. I need a new die cutter.” How can you possibly be looking a year, year and a half down the road and say, “I need something,” when that’s the kind of lead time you’re getting at the moment? Brewer: I don’t buy it and build the book of business on it. I build the book of business and then buy it to support it. I’m not looking at two years down the road, what do I think I’m going to need. I develop that need and then maybe find a partner—a friend with a boat—and have them take care of it for me until that new machine comes in. Morelli: Finn, I don’t know if you can speak to this. You’re putting a brand-new, beautiful facility in and, I’m sure, putting new equipment in. What are your thoughts on how you project down the road? MacDonald: My only thought was, 10 or 12 years ago, when we signed a 10-year lease, it wasn’t a 14-year lease. Time just allowed us to get ahead of this tightness that we’re in. Because of that, the one thing that’s kind of interesting is there’s an opportunity for a lot of different folks to be a part of our growth. If you can’t get something new, but you need something, then you might get something used. If you can’t get something used, but you need to retrofit or refurbish or build up,
then you can do it. There’s a lot of options out there. There’s a lot of great options. There’s a lot of ways to get around this. I think if you develop a network of folks who can say, “Listen, let me understand what your end game is, but let me help you move the pieces to get there”—we’ve got partners out there who are that creative. They’re thinking the way I think, and then they come to me, and they bring me that, and it’s very, very refreshing to have those sort of allies. I tell you, if you’re one of the few who do that, then you’re going to be in the mix for a long time. Great opportunity. Morelli: Does the uncertain time today, over the last couple weeks with everything going on in the world, put any hesitance in your mind right now? Is there any hesitance to the risk level that we might be living in right now? Davis: I think a little bit, for sure, but the encouraging part, we’re blessed to be in this industry, and this industry has been pretty good throughout the pandemic. I do feel that habits have changed. Whether it’s out of fear or convenience, people are ordering stuff online. And it’s kind of “What do you want to do with your Saturday?” and it’s not “Go shop at Target.” The two of the three economists
that spoke this afternoon, they encouraged us to buy equipment. That kind of stuff helps reinforce what we’re doing and gives us some confidence that the industry is strong and going to continue to be. Even though there is inflation and some uncertain times ahead, again, we’re blessed to be in this industry. Brewer: Yeah. Hesitancy is not on the table now. Our industry’s doing well. We have our challenges, but we have to just press forward, make the decision, and keep pressing. There’s no bubble out there, in my mind. I’m not worried about that. We’re just on a trajectory. MacDonald: If you think about where they project the ripples, I don’t know if they project that there are going to be fewer problems, and the world is going to slow down, and folks are going to want much, much more of the same and much, much, much less of something unique and different and very focused on their business. And that’s the heart of what we do. There might be some layers above and below that could change, but the heart of what’s going on, I think, still has a bright future. It’s hard to solve labor, but we can throw technology at more quickly, more efficiently diagnosing a machine problem, get there before it happens so we save the downtime. We can communicate more easily within the plants. We can’t throw people at problems, but we can throw communication and labor and process. I think if we can do that, our little sector of manufacturing can remain bullish. Morelli: Gentlemen, I just want to thank you personally for helping me out in doing this today and bringing something a little diff erent to this meeting, something that might change the pace a little bit and hopefully brings a bit of value to everybody in this room. Hearing directly from you on things that matter to these people is what we were trying to accomplish as a team. So, thank you all very much.
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BOXSCORE July/August 2022
