From 8,000 a Day With 8–10 People
to 40,000 With Four Operators

Modern's team was able to operate the FlexPak on day one. Reaching full production speed required something more important than simply turning on the equipment: standardizing everything that reached the machine.

Markie identified two priorities: source material with consistent density and characteristics, and build a repeatable grinding process around that material. Because FlexPak fills volumetrically, inconsistent material preparation produces inconsistent weights. Modern used its initial one- to two-week ramp to tighten those upstream procedures and calibrate the machine for each operator.

Once those steps were established, the team reported holding an approximately 0.04 g weight margin while producing as many as 20,000 pre-rolls per machine per day.

The old workflow required eight to ten people to reach a maximum of 8,000 pre-rolls during a full production day. At full speed, one FlexPak allowed two core operators to produce approximately 20,000. On a simple units-per-assigned-worker basis, that moved production from roughly 800–1,000 units per worker to approximately 10,000.

The larger business effect mattered just as much as the labor savings. Modern did not have to eliminate the remaining team. It could redirect those employees to gummies, vapes, beverages, flower and other revenue-producing SKUs while the pre-roll line continued producing at a higher level.

Modern's first FlexPak proved the workflow at 20,000 pre-rolls per day. The second doubled the dependable production baseline. With two machines and four core operators, Modern expected approximately 40,000 pre-rolls in a production day. Its strongest recorded days came within roughly 3,000 units of 50,000.

The company later added a third system, giving the operation the flexibility to run one, two or three machines based on current demand. That modular capacity allowed Modern to scale output without forcing every order through one expensive single point of production.

After Modern increased machine output, loading empty cones into each plate became the next obvious bottleneck. As an early operating partner for the FlexPak Auto Cone Loader, Modern began stacking cones into a master plate that holds multiple layers. Loading the tower took approximately three minutes. Once prepared, the loader could release a layer of cones into the production plate in roughly 20 seconds.

Markie estimated that the stacked system reduced repetitive manual plate-loading steps by approximately eight times. In Modern's two-machine configuration, it also allowed the core crew to move from four people to three: one employee could run the loader and help close while the other operators kept production moving. At the time of the interview, Modern had only been using the loader for two to three months and had not yet run enough sustained peak demand to establish a verified full-day output increase.

Modern has needed replacement components and additional parts during its time with FlexPak. Markie described the support process as straightforward and consistently responsive. When the team reached out, it typically received an answer the same day. Required components were shipped that night and commonly arrived the following day or the day after.

Markie also highlighted small actions that reduced future interruption—such as including extra setup-box rails without waiting for the customer to request them.

Modern initially compared an approximately $15,000 historical FlexPak package with the roughly $2,000 knockboxes it had already been using. Looking only at the equipment price made the difference feel substantial. Looking at finished output and labor changed the calculation.

Markie reported that the machine recovered its cost during the first significant sales order—approximately one week of operation for Modern's product mix and margins. That return made the second and third machines easier to justify. Modern was adding proven capacity rather than starting another equipment experiment.