Jan. 6, 2012

It’s January 2012 and the weather in Utah is dry and sunny.  This has proven to be a great break for the contractors that are putting the finishing touches on our new building.  We’re being told that we’ll be ready to move in about 90 days from now, we shall see.  What we do know is the fun part is going on now with drywall going up and even paint on the walls of the plant, which now has heat!  We submitted our LEED points and we are at 62 (60 is gold). Exciting stuff as we initially set out to just certify the building.

Holiday retail numbers are in and it looks like a real great holiday for all of our customers, so we’re getting ready for another strong year.  Our backlog is solid, but we are taking machines down for some much needed maintenance. 

The new press is ready to ship from Germany and it should be on the water in February.  We are hoping to have it up and running for the next holiday season!  2012 will be the most exciting year in our history and there is much work to be done.  Once it’s done, we will have a world class box plant!

Team UPB.

Aug. 16, 2011

It’s the Dog Days of Summer here in Salt Lake and most of us have had their time off for the summer and are back to work.  The building is running about 1 month behind schedule and now looks to be complete in February of 2012.  Most of this is due to the very wet spring we had, but frankly the press doesn’t show up until March, so we feel it was all meant to be.  The plan is to finish the building, install the one press, and see where we stand.  If the backlog warrants a move, we will start moving presses. If we are too busy, we stay until we see a hole in the schedule.  We don’t have to move in at any given time, so we can do it when it doesn’t affect customers. 

We are on our 15th building meeting. We meet every two weeks and we are now down to the brass tacks of the office.  The office has a very modern look with some nice architectural touches.  We have tried to make it look like the office of a print company - we even have a rainbow of colors in the building with every office getting a different color carpet. 

Our crew also meets twice a month on the LEED certification of the building, and we think we have enough points to be LEED Silver.  It’s a long process, but the building is a far better building because of it.  It’s been a rewarding thing to do and I enjoy working with the team very much! 

As for our backlog, it’s fall at UPB. We are busy and the plant is running extra hours - it’s just the nature of our book of business.  So summer is over and it’s back to work. It was nice while it lasted, but a routine is nice too.  Cheers! 

Steve Keyser

Mar. 16, 2011

It’s been two years since UPB set out to cut our footprint by 33% by the year 2015 from our base year of 2008.  Although we only used 5.75% less power in 2010 versus 2008, I feel we can improve this in 2011. We had sales growth/more volume in 2010 so our power level did not drop as quickly as some other resources did.
As predicted, natural gas went down by an impressive 23.5%!  Water usage is way down as well at 28%.  Diesel has shown another huge savings: down 24%.

Jan. 1, 2011

Well . . . 2010 turned out to be a much better year than most predicted and there’s a lot we have
accomplished! We are full on into plastic boxes and feel that we will be a force to reckon with. Our new
Bobst 142 CER is here and we are in the process of installing it - this will be our second large format
blanking diecutter. This will give UPB the diecutting capacity we need to handle the new printing press
that we’ll be installing in the new building. On the subject of new, we broke ground on our new building
and a year from now, we’ll be moved in!
We’ve also worked to improve flow in the plant by moving machinery around and cutting some holes in
the walls. We now know this is our permanent home and we’re working hard to make it as efficient as
possible. Soon pictures will be posted on the website, but in the meantime you can find us on Facebook –
look for Utah Paperbox Company.
Happy New Year!

Team UPB.

Sept. 23, 2010

We have seen several signs from the city that we will have the Railroad Property in the coming month.  This should allow us to begin construction by the first of the year. That means we are out of our 340 West 200 South location in 2011 and all the presses will be moved in early 2012.  We shall see!

Our new 30kWh solar array is up and running - this brings our total system to 40kWh.  This system will generate a megawatt every 4 sunny days and will supply 20% of the building’s power that it sits atop.  Our system will generate 86,400kWh in 2011 or roughly $10,000 of power.  I say roughly, because we pay multiple rates, but mostly this is figured at the “peak demand” power rate.  It’s also enough power to power 10 average size homes!  We feel the ROI on this system is 10 years at current rates after incentives.  The panels will last 30 years, so one can argue that they make business sense.  We also feel it softens our impact on the valley and contributes to the RMP effort not to build more power plants.

We continue to be busy, but at a much more comfortable pace.  Board continues to be tight and pricing is still on the rise, but our gut is that things will loosen up around the holidays.  We have purchased a large format blanking die cutter and we will be installing it in December.  This will allow us to support the additional capacity that will come on line when the building is built.

 So all the pieces of the puzzle are in place, it’s time to execute!

From team UPB.

July 6, 2010

This past quarter has been very interesting and very productive.  We’ve been running quite a bit of plastic and I am pleased to say that we produced our first live job.  The learning curve is big and we need to buy some equipment for testing, but we feel like we’re going to be a force to reckon with.  The fact that we have a rotary stamping press is huge and will be a great advantage in plastic packaging.

On the green front, UPB has been awarded a grant from the American Recovery Act and we will be adding another 28kWh to our solar array. This will make our system 38kWh, making us a real player in the renewable energy field.

Our lighting and compressed air project is complete and its official: the air system alone is 107,000kWh of savings.  That powers 12 average sized homes.  Overall, we saw an 18% drop in our power bill at the Finishing Building last month alone.

Paperboard is tight and we have been scrambling to keep up. Thus far, we have not disappointed a customer, but it’s been tough.  Good relationships with our suppliers have once again paid off. 

UPB has passed two major audits for food safety and we feel like our house is really in order.  These audits have been a positive learning experience and we feel like we run one of the cleanest packaging shops in the country.

So now it’s game time, as we head into our busy season. The next few months are going to be about running wide open and installing solar panels!

May 2, 2010

To celebrate Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary, UPB has purchased 1,806,000 kWh of certified American wind power through Renewable Choice Energy.  This is the right thing to do for us and this first purchase is a commitment for the next two years.  As we begin building our new Printing building, the wind power will count toward our LEED certification as well. All those kilowatts translate to enough power to run 96 average sized homes for two years - this is a substantial amount of power!  To put it in perspective, our solar array will generate about 15,000 kWh of power this year and we thought that was big!  
UPB is committed to a 33%reduction of our environmental footprint by 2017 and this is just another step in that direction.

Happy Earth Day!
From Team UPB

“Click image for more information on Earth Day 2010”

Febuary 23, 2010

UPB and Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) are doing a lighting and compressed air project together.  We are in the process of putting in 233 new T-8 light fixtures replacing the current T-12’s  This will result in a 20% savings on each fixture as T-8’s are 32 watts and T-12’s are 40 watts.  T-8’s are also 4% brighter.  We are also re-plumbing all of our air to be more efficient and run in a loop at lower pressure with much bigger storage tank.  RMP estimated that UPB will save approximately 275,000 kWh of electricity per year.  Rocky Mountain power states the ROI on these projects is 7 years.  This project will be complete in the first quarter of 2010 and should cut our carbon footprint significantly.     
We take our goal of reducing our carbon footprint 33% by 2017 very seriously and this is just one more step we are doing to accomplish this.

November 11, 2009

Some companies have gone out and bought "green power" and for that we applaud them, but here at UPB we are used to thinking outside the box. So we thought, "Why let Rockey Mountain Power have all the fun? Let's make our own power!" so we did. Behold the rooftop of the future. On the west side of the building we are harvesting sunlight to light the building with our new GPS solar tracking skylights. On the East side of the building we have just finished installing the first phase of our solar farm: a 10kw system that will generate 5% of the power for the building it sits on top of. Over the next five years we want to grow the system to 50kw's or 50,000 watts