A helpful office aid and an attractive advertising space – that’s how Terminic promotes its wall calendars. The first calendar, a clever design featuring a corporate advert and a three-month calendar, was developed way back in 1937 for Unterweser Reederei in Bremen, Germany. Aside from a WWII wartime pause, the company has been producing calendars and growing ever since. Currently they print 5.5 million calendars in more than 25 languages, offering custom solutions highlighting the right holidays for each customer. Unterweser Reederei is still a customer, but the paperboard used for all the calendars is a newer choice: Korsnäs White.
All of us complain about having too little time, but what we’re talking about is perceived time. In reality, we all receive the same measure, 24 hours a day. There are a variety of calendar systems, but the Gregorian calendar, starting with the birth of Christ, is now used in most countries. It was adopted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 as a minor reform of the Julian calendar. “There is so much interaction between people of different faiths and cultures – different civilizations, if you like – that some shared way of reckoning time is a necessity. And so the Christian Era has become the Common Era,” (Kofi Annan).
Biggest in Germany
Today Terminic is the biggest manufacturer of this type of wall calendar, not only in Germany but throughout Europe. Initially, the calendar customers were all shipping and logistics companies, but now Terminic serves a full range of businesses. The three-month calendar is their standard product but more and more four-month calendars are now in demand, especially in Germany. For the past 40 years, calendars are all they have produced, and they now employ 60 people. To ensure quick deliveries, Terminic buys its paperboard from the wholesaler Papyrus Deutschland.
Just-in-time delivery and excellent printability
With call-off stock and an efficient distribution network, Papyrus Deutschland makes life easy for Terminic, and can deliver immediately based on a phone call. This simplifies the production flow, and the flexibility Terminic can thus offer its customers is an important competitive advantage. Calendar orders vary from 200 to 150,000 pieces. “We demand a great deal of our suppliers when it comes to both service and the properties of the material,” says Terminic CEO Wolfgang Rolla du Rosey. “The technical properties of Korsnäs White – especially its printability and its flatness – combined with the service we receive ensure that we can sleep well at night.”
Calendar building
When you pull up to Terminic, it doesn’t take much imagination to understand that this is a company that makes calendars. The exterior walls of the building are numbered like the pages of a planning calendar, and the facade facing the main road – Highway 1 – bears a highly appropriate number 1. After all, Terminic promotes itself as the number one company in the industry – and has the self-confidence that befits a leader.