IPS - A Varied Diet

Variety isn’t just the spice of life at Royal Paper Stock Co. Inc. in Columbus, Ohio, it’s a way of life. Though the company has made its name primarily as a high-grade paper recycling operation since its 1954 founding, in reality, Royal Paper Stock handles bulk grades, office pack and just about everything in between.

The company purchased two balers from IPS Baler Corp., headquartered in Baxley, Ga., in 2007 to handle such a diverse diet of recovered paper—a Model TR-1388-100S w/ LID Two-RAM and a Model AT-965- HS-100S Hinge-Side Auto-Tie. Both have been put to work baling a number of different grades, according to Plant Manager Junior Litton. Litton says the hinge-side typically handles the company’s sorted office paper, filestock and news, while the 2-RAM tackles boxboard and "just about everything else."

Furthermore, the transition between each grade is smoothed by the balers’ programming feature. "It’s pre-programmed for each different grade," says Litton. "We just clean the machine up and go to work."

In addition, the baler team from IPS has helped Royal Paper Stock achieve heavier, denser bales than the company saw with its previous baling equipment. "They run about 1,200 to 1,300 pounds a piece," Litton says of the bales produced by the IPS machines.

The company’s old balers just weren’t producing the dense, even, export-quality bales Royal Paper Stock needed, according to Rich Dahn, the company’s vice president. "Now we have denser bales, and they fit the containers better," Dahn says. "It’s really opened the export world to us."

The denser bales have also helped Royal Paper Stock improve safety, Dahn adds. "The bales are denser and the integrity has improved, so we can stack them more efficiently and safely."

Problems with the machines have been few and far between, but the crew at IPS is quick to respond when questions do arise, Dahn says.

Litton also has high praise for the IPS compression lid feature, which he says has "just about eliminated shearing." He has also been impressed by the balers’ construction. "The quality is just superior to anything that we’d experienced prior," he says.