Thomas and Green has been making quality paper for 300 years. Having pioneered many of the paper making processes used throughout the world, Thomas and Green are the largest manufacturer of coffee basket filters in Europe with a manufacturing capacity in excess of 30 million units per week.

The Thomas and Green production facility, based in Hereford, has 3,500 sq m of modern production space and 2,700 sq ft of racked warehousing.

With probably the widest range of filter sizes in the world, Thomas and Green offers a bespoke manufacturing service for some of the best known coffee brands.

Managing Director, Tom Klimes, talks to us about how specialist software TOPS Pro from AutoLogic Systems Ltd helps to keep their packaging and loading processes as efficient as possible whilst offering a quality bespoke service to their customers.

Thomas and Green sells 200 different products in 70 different packaging formats, to catering re-sellers and retailers in 30 countries. 50 per cent of all Thomas and Green products are exported. A sophisticated process is therefore required that will ensure they can ship as efficiently as possible.

Thomas & Green were previously using a piece of software to assist in this process but were finding it difficult to use and not getting the results they were after. That is when they switched to TOPS Pro, nearly five years ago.

TOPS Pro is an easy to use software that enables the reduction of packaging and transport costs by 5-20% by optimising all areas of packaging design, from primary and secondary packaging through to case, pallet and vehicle.

Tom Klimes comments: “TOPS Pro does exactly what it says on the tin. Our customers typically specify how many product they require in each box and the artwork that is to be used. We then use TOPS Pro to come up wit the most efficient shape of box and number of boxes per pallet. We also have to use a mixture of standard and Euro pallets and the software enables us to specify both versions.

AutoLogic Systems, the company behind the software, are on hand to help with any questions or training requirements we have and work with us to get the most out of the software.

TOPS Pro enables us to benefit from the best pallet optimisation possible which in turn means we can keep our costs down for our customers. This is increasingly important in such a price sensitive market. We probably made our money back on purchasing the software in the first six months. Five years later, we are still saving.”