Managing Growing Volumes at Mary Kay Inc.

"The folding specs for each job come to us from the packaging engineers," he explains. "Then we set up the machines. Most of the jobs we see, we've seen before, so the folder operators know what they need to do to have a sheet fold correctly."

Sometimes, though, the folding specifications don't work quite right. "The size could be fine, but the sequence of the folds or scoring might leave the finished sheet feeling spongy rather than tight," says Hopson. "We have the latitude to make adjustments that make sure the quality of the folded sheet is where the company wants it to be."