From seven to three days for artwork approval.

Who Gualapack Brasil is

Gualapack is a multinational flexible packaging group, world leader in spouted stand-up pouches, with about 2,000 employees worldwide. In Brazil the story begins in 1994 with Tradbor, one of the first companies to make pre-formed stand-up pouches in the country. The Iperó (SP) plant started in 2000; in 2015 Gualapack bought Tradbor and Gualapack Brasil was born, which in 2021 began producing laminates at its Jaguariúna (SP) plant.

The company makes pouches, sachets, stand-up pouches and spouted pouches for food, beverages, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and holds ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 22000 and BRCGS certifications. Each one requires proving, in audits, how the internal stages happen, the artwork department included.

What held things back: scattered information and long cycles

Before LinkFlow, processes and indicators were tracked in e-mails and spreadsheets. Each customer’s technical sheet was filled in more than once, information was dispersed among departments and there was no history: a game of “broken telephone”.

The plate-making department received incomplete requests to engrave plates. Sales could not check the progress of jobs and so gave customers no delivery forecast. Prepress struggled to manage artwork development, layout approvals, plate engraving and plate replacement. R&D consulted technical data inefficiently and did not always know the status of each project.

Layout approval cycles, with customers and internal ones, were long. Without traceability it was hard to identify indicators, and rework repeated itself.

What changed with workflows and approvals

Gualapack implemented LinkFlow’s Workflow management and Artwork approval. The customer’s technical sheet became digital, filled in once and consulted by every department. The internal flow gained pace, because each stage already carries what the next one needs.

Adoption started in prepress, which consolidated the use, and then the system was opened for the other departments to consult: everyone came to see what stage each project is at. The system became the base of the company’s main processes: new layouts, changes, repeats, internal rework and samples.

Through the platform’s reports, the company began to measure the time of four indicators:

• artwork analysis;
• release for plate engraving;
• delivery of the digital proof;
• documentation supplied to the departments.

The rollout and remote approval with customers

There was initial resistance from some departments, and the system had to be integrated with other tools of the company. Starting with prepress solved both: the department proved the result and pulled the others along.

With customers, the acceptance of remote approval varied. Most took to it well, and some already used LinkFlow with other converters. A few smaller customers preferred to keep approving by e-mail; even then, Gualapack uses the platform to organize those exchanges.

Results

The lead time for artwork approval fell from seven to three days. Monthly approvals went from 50 to 100. Production scheduling gained predictability, with less noise in internal communication and less rework.

The four indicators became visible in the reports, which exposed the bottlenecks and supported decisions. The system’s records also served as evidence in the revalidation audits of BRCGS and ISO 9001:2015, which require proof of every stage, the artwork department included.