Design and Development of Packaging in Supply Chain Management: A Case Study
Achieving effectiveness and efficiency in supply chains is one of the focus areas for industry as well as for academic research. One way to achieve these goals is to design and develop product and packaging systems (See Figure 1) which can meet the needs
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hain-focused packaging design and development method, for packaging sub-systems (primary and secondary packaging) and the use of this method. Multiple sources of input were used in this case study, sources such as the company’s internal documentation, informal interviews, and observations. The internal documentation included design and development manuals and previous documents from projects that were utilized the company’s packaging design and development method. Open interviews about packaging development processes were conducted with six company internal experts in product and packaging design and development, and packaging logistics. The interviewees in this study had both used or developed design and development methods for package development within the company. In addition, one of the authors made direct observations in projects that utilized the packaging design and development methods within the company. The results of the data collected from theory and practice were analyzed, based on themes from the literature review. The literature review on which this case study was based was carried out using the following search words/terms: product, packaging, logistics, design, development and supply chain. As a result, suggestions for enhancements of the method for considering various needs along the supply chain were suggested and the final results were reviewed by design and development experts at the case company. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The design and development method used in the case company is the “Package Requirement Cascading” (PRC). It is internally developed at the case company based on Olsson’s (1976) theories. PRC is used to produce draft specifications that provide guidelines for further development of primary and secondary packaging into finished packaging solution where characteristics such as dimensions (size), strength, and material choice are set. It is also used to identify needs, priorities important functional requirements, and design attributes stemming from needs identified in the supply chain on primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging (usually standard pallet sizes). Supply chain needs are supposed to be identified and categorized based on the life cycle of the packaging (i.e. development, production, distribution, use, elimination). The most undefined area is that of setting the needs from supply chain. The most suitable way to categories, the needs coming from the supply chain is to follow the chain and collect the needs in different parts of it. The packaging life cycle used by the case company today has five categories, while a more complete way to categorize would be to include development, sourcing and procurement, production, warehousing and handling, transport, marketing, use and elimination as in Figure 3 (adapted from Olsson, 1976 and Sohrabpour et al., 2012). The method used by the case company in this case study, is adapted to make a more detailed design and development method for packaging design and development based on supply chain needs. As one of the most important compon
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