August 7, 2017
How much time does your team spend creating new and innovative designs compared to searching for historical designs, answering client questions, and making sure everything is correct?
Proactive design drives revenue and saves money. However, if you are like most packaging companies, then your team is spending more time on administrative tasks and not enough time on proactive design. If the bandwidth of your designers is maxed out, then the traditional strategy is to try to optimize your process by hiring more people. A lot of time, effort, and money are being poured into these people-driven supply chain improvements.
We aren’t seeing dramatic change because we have not solved the core issue. The core issue is managing the DNA of packaging—the design and the specification. Bad specs = bad everything. The most cost-effective way to increase time spent on proactive design and innovation is to eliminate the waste created by bad specs. Perhaps it is time to look into technology to solve this conundrum.
Specifically, it is time to look into a software tool that promotes collaboration between packaging companies and customers. Many longtime industry professionals believe that the software portal route has been tried with minimal success. The issue with existing vendor portals is that they are siloed within an individual vendor-client relationship. This unilateral nature does not promote collaboration, leading to limited usage, especially for larger companies that are expected to use multiple portals.
A common platform for collaborating across suppliers on all elements of packaging designs and specifications is an opportunity for packaging companies to enhance their value to customers. The tool must be a value-add for the companies and individuals that are purchasing the packaging. End users should want to utilize this platform. The packaging design is the nucleus of the specification, but the system needs to capture all specification data and files—from structural and print details to logistics requirements, with key information being easy to find and analyze. Everybody in the supply chain is now able to quickly view the same version of a design.
Packaging companies currently store their own data sets and files. End users of packaging have some level of data in different systems. This lack of centralization creates concern over what is the correct version and inevitably results in busywork for designers. All parties need a central common platform that invites everyone in to do great things. When this is done, the amount of errors and therefore nonconformances drops, eliminating wasted time and energy for all.
So now that all the busy, unproductive work is completed, what else can be done? With a common platform, designs can be shared quickly, new innovative materials explored, sustainability increased, and cost reductions realized. This future is exciting with big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Rather than prolonging the inevitable, embrace it. The packaging industry is a green field to showcase your progressiveness and provide innovative value to your customers through technology. Enable this technology for your end user today, and truly make your value offering unique.
Matthew Wright is the founder and CEO of Specright, the spec system for the digital world. Wright has more than 25 years of experience in packaging and has held various operational and management roles with International Paper and Temple-Inland. While vice president for Temple-Inland, he ran a $500 million business unit. He previously owned and operated rightPAQ, too. He can be reached at matthew.wright@specright.com.
