Being a co-manufacturer means being everything for everyone all the time. Your job isn't just to create a good product with your name attached; you must meet the specific standards of dozens of customers so they can deliver consistent quality to their own customers. Speed, flexibility and precision aren't differentiators; they're the baseline.
That's the daily reality at Illinois-based contract manufacturer MattPak. Producing everything from spices to laundry and dishwasher pods for businesses of all sizes means constantly balancing competing demands. Co-Owner and Operations Manager Matt Kunach recognized early that automation could provide a critical edge, not only ensuring orders were delivered on time and in full, but helping MattPak stay ahead in a market that doesn't slow down.
"We recognized that automation is the future," he said. "We knew we had to get started somewhere and then expand from there."
The challenge: flexibility without the risk
For a co-manufacturer like MattPak, the product mix is always shifting. That variability made automation feel daunting, particularly without internal robotics expertise. But it also made the case for it. The end of line palletizing process, with its hundreds of SKUs and complex pallet patterns, was an obvious starting point: repetitive, physically demanding and a consistent source of injury risk.
"We looked at palletizing and thought, 'That's not a fun job and it's a high risk of injury,'" Kunach said. "I'd rather move that person palletizing to a different area that requires more operational decision making."
The bigger hesitation wasn't operational; it was financial. Traditional palletizing systems were running upwards of $150,000, with no guarantee of immediate returns and no built-in support if something went wrong.
"We didn't want to buy a palletizer and then realize it wasn't going to run as promised, or be left to figure it out on our own," Kunach said. “We were looking for a partner who would stand behind the system and support us.”
That's what led MattPak to Formic and its Full Service Automation model. Rather than a traditional capital purchase, Formic's approach meant no large upfront investment, 24/7 support and equipment that could be swapped out as production needs changed. For a co-manufacturer juggling constant SKU variability and shifting customer demands, that last point wasn't a nice-to-have; it was the whole ballgame.
A deployment built around minimal disruption
Most manufacturers can't afford to get automation wrong, but they also can't afford the downtime that comes with a slow or poorly planned rollout. What stood out to Kunach early in the process was the use of augmented reality to 3D map the facility before a single piece of equipment arrived, allowing engineers to visualize and optimize placement in advance.
“Nobody else we talked to had that tool,” Kunach said. “Formic came in and just asked for the feed rate and package weight and made it work from there. I didn't have to do much else.”
The result was a smooth integration into live operations and rapid early returns. Job changeovers that once required significant manual effort are now faster and simpler. The system maintains high efficiency across hundreds of SKUs with minimal supervision and MattPak has eliminated its reliance on temp labor to cover palletizing shifts.
"The efficiency of the automated palletizer has been impressive," Kunach said. "Some SKUs move through the line quickly and the palletizer keeps up, building pallets that are ready for the forklift driver to stretchwrap."
Uptime, capital and what gets unlocked
Since deployment, MattPak has seen 98% system uptime, a figure that matters enormously for a co-manufacturer whose customers are counting on consistent output. But Kunach points to a less obvious benefit that's had just as much impact: what the capital savings have made possible.
Rather than tying up six figures in equipment, Formic's pay as you go model means MattPak pays on a monthly basis, freeing up capital that can be redirected toward other revenue-generating investments. "I pay monthly and continually improve operational efficiency," Kunach said. "It frees up capital we can use to make improvements elsewhere."
That flexibility, built into how Formic structures its partnerships, has compounded over time. Encouraged by the results on the palletizing line and supported by Formic's ongoing technical expertise, MattPak is now expanding into automated case packing, the next step in building a more fully integrated production line.
Growth as the goal
The business case for automation at MattPak was never about cutting headcount. It was about building a company capable of handling more, more customers, more SKUs, more volume, without the operational strain that comes with scaling manually.
In the next few years, MattPak plans to grow from its current 55,000 square foot facility into an operation spanning more than 100,000 square feet, designed to support additional production lines, a broader product mix and expansion into new segments. Having a partner that can scale alongside them, swapping and redeploying equipment as needs evolve, makes that kind of growth planning considerably less daunting.
"It's not about cutting labor; we're focused on growing the company and helping employees work safer and more efficiently," Kunach said. "Getting started with automation opened our eyes. We're now looking at every step in the production line for opportunities to improve efficiency, safety and flexibility."
For a co-manufacturer whose entire value proposition is reliability and adaptability, that mindset, more than any single piece of equipment, may be the most important thing automation has unlocked.
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