Flexible Packaging Playbook - mediadroit

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2011 Edition

HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY IMPLEMENT FLEXIBLE PACKAGING PROJECTS

• Flexible packaging design strategies

• Material specification best practices

• Machinery selection and implementation

• Evaluation toolkits

Flexible Packaging Playbook

packager’s playbook serieseducation for packaging professionals

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CONTENTS 2 / 85

DEVELOPMENT31 Trends in flexible packaging36 Best practices in flexible package development40 Balancing risk with innovation41 Building supplier relationships that foster innovation43 How flexible packaging projects fail

DESIGN10 For great flexible packaging, know your consumer15 Assemble a cross-functional team18 Five steps to great design with flexible film23 Two ways to justify package design27 10 steps for shaping your own ethnographic research29 Outsource or in-house? 7 evaluation steps

INTRODUCTION6 The case for flexible packaging that delivers on all accounts

CONTRIBUTORS4 Brand owners, consultants and design experts contributing to this playbook


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GALLERY78 Flexible Package Gallery — Selected examples of packaging innovation

EQUIPMENT46 Trends in form/fill/seal equipment50 Best practices for specifying packaging equipment53 Five tips on finding the right f/f/s supplier56 What NOT to overlook on form/fill/seal equipment projects59 Vendor evaluation methodology for form/fill/seal equipment62 Staffing a machinery project for success64 Roadmap for a successful form/fill/seal factory acceptance test67 Determining when to rebuild or replace a form/fill/seal machine69 Tips for a successful flexible packaging line start-up72 Financial justifications for new form/fill/seal equipment75 Six common pitfalls to avoid on bagging machinery projects

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CONTRIBUTORS 4 / 85

Jeff GeorGeVice President of Research & DevelopmentSara Lee Corp.

Sal PellinGraDirector of InnovationAmpac

Shawn frenchTechnical DirectorDannon

Paul ZePfP.Eng., M.Eng., CPPZarpac Inc.With nearly 40 years of packaging production experience, Zepf has written 14 books on packaging production technology and is a co-founder of Zarpac Inc., an engineering, software, and consulting firm.

robert c. collinS ii, cPP/MhPresidentGlobal Packaging Optimization, LLCCollins held package development management positions in seven major corporations, most recently as Associate Director, Global Package Development for Procter & Gamble—Gillette.

brad rodGerSManager—Sustainable Pkg. & Advanced Materials ResearchFrito-Lay

The following brand owners, consultants and design experts contributed to this playbook:

Melinda wootenOwner/PartnerKW Strategems

tiM bohrerPresidentPac Advantage ConsultingSpecializing in flexible packaging, Bohrer spent 30 years leading package development groups at several prominent packaging converters.


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We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of these suppliers:Ampac, DuPont, Exopack, Glenroy, Ilapak, Kliklok-Woodman, Printpack, Triangle Package Machinery Co.

Other sources:Paco Underhill, The Wall Street Journal, Flexible Packaging Association, Flexcon, Perception Research Services, Tobii Technologies, Klöckner Pentaplast, Packaging & Technology Integrated Solutions, Pira International, Zunda Group, Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Additional contributors:

Several other brand owners were interviewed for this playbook on the condition of anonymity.

Stuart leSliePresident4Sight Design Inc.

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dean lindSayPresidentDean Linsday Design Inc.

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by JiM GeorGe,Director of Education, IoPP

(formerly editor of Shelf Impact!)

and david newcorn,VP/Digital & Custom Media

The case for flexible packaging that delivers on all accountsIn today’s retail market, product differentiation at shelf is more important than ever. Advertising influences only 8% of consumer purchases, but 35% of purchase decisions are attributable to eye-catching packaging. As much as 70% of purchase decisions are made in the store, as consumers decide within seconds whether they will purchase a product that caught their eye. Once the consumer selects a product, the package’s performance in taking the product home, storing it, and then using it, becomes just as important.

In this scenario, the fast-growing flexible packaging industry is making huge strides in consumer goods. Flexible packaging is a $26 billion business, the second largest packaging segment in the U.S., and its holds an 18% share of the $143 billion U.S. packaging market, according to the Flexible Packaging Association. Today, food (retail and institutional) comprises the largest market for flexible packaging, accounting for about 56% of shipments. Retail nonfood products, industrial, consumer products, institutional nonfood, and medical and pharmaceutical packaging each comprise an 8% to 12% share of the market.

Why is the market for flexible packaging growing? For starters, technology advances have widened flexible packaging’s value, and it’s evident in packages such as a microwavable, self-venting, steamable stand-up pouch for vegetables and spouted pouches in beverages. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and retailers love flexible film for the high

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gloss and visual enhancement it delivers in the store. Flexible packaging also provides brand owners and retailers with merchandising options. In the freezer case, for example, they can provide either a pillow bag, which lays flat, or a standup pouch, which improves product visibility.

Then there’s the matter of convenience: A die-cut handle in the film makes a 42-lb bag of Fresh Step cat litter immeasurably easier to lift and carry. In addition, many consumers with limited pantry storage space simply appreciate flexible’s adaptability. Finally, flexible packaging enjoys an edge on some other packaging forms because it protects the product from moisture, offers convenience of disposal, and presents transportation cost savings.

Flexible film’s benefits extend to the label. A shrink-sleeve label can provide the 360˚ billboard that brand marketers need. A clear, pressure-sensitive label may work in tandem with other package components to create a brand experience. Flexible-film labels may provide an extended billboard for special coupon offers on limited-surface packages such as those for toothbrushes. Or, they may enhance tamper evidence or use materials that reflect a product manufacturer’s eco-friendly packaging initiatives.

But here’s the bottom line: The right label can increase product sales—such as the 14% sales increase that a pressure-sensitive label gave to Appletiser, a South Africa-based premium, nonalcoholic beverage brand, without compromising product line speeds. Or, it can help to regain lost market share, as richly printed “billboards” on flexible-film bags of Huggies GoodNites children’s disposable diapers did for Kimberly-Clark.

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The case for flexible packaging that delivers on all accounts

Materials reduction: Clorox reduced packaging materials by about 80% by eliminating a polypropylene pail and substituting a flexible bag for Fresh Step Cat Litter. The design provides handling, pouring, resealing, and storage benefits equaling those of the pail.



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As brand owners and their supply chains continue to look for ways to embrace technological advancements in film, they continue to face challenges in doing so with packaging that works well on all levels—and also pleases the consumer. A recent 100% compostable flexible snack bag for Frito Lay’s SunChips seemed to score well on all accounts—and offered an environmentally friendly package to boot—but it didn’t meet entirely with consumer acceptance. Some consumers disliked the bags' loud crinkling noise, prompting Frito-Lay to pull the bags from store shelves. However. Frito-Lay in March 2011 introduced new 7.5-oz compostable bags that feel and sound very similar to the company's standard packaging.

The best flexible packages result from assembling the right team, understanding your consumer, selecting the appropriate materials, and validating the design—elements that will be discussed on the following pages.

Best practices and pitfalls to avoid

To assemble this playbook, we interviewed many packaging experts across the value chain, including brand owners, consultants, design experts, and suppliers. We asked them to specify the best practices and pitfalls to avoid when embarking on a flexible packaging project, whether it’s a redesign or a full-blown new package. While there is no substitute for formal packaging education, the school of hard knocks is no less a demanding taskmaster. We’ve drawn from some of the brightest minds in packaging insights that will maximize your chances for success.

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We’ve divided this playbook into three sections: Design, Development, and Equipment. Invariably, your focus will only be on one of these sections, but we strongly encourage you to read the articles in the other sections. That in itself is a best practice—taking the time to understand the language, issues, and constraints your colleagues must deal with.

We’re also delighted to include, in the back of this playbook, several pages of special hand-selected photos of real-world flexible packages that epitomize the best practices presented in this playbook.

But the story doesn’t end there. Quite the opposite. This entire playbook—and others in this series that Packaging World is proud to debut—is meant to be a living entity. We invite you to join the conversation. If you have something to add, click “Add comment” at the bottom of this or any page, and fill out the form that follows. Your comments will fuel future iterations of this playbook, strengthening the canon of packaging knowledge.

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For great flexible packaging, know your consumerThe path to creating and developing great flexible packages starts with understanding factors that influence purchase intent, as well as how shoppers view and use products, and scan store shelves.

American shopping tendencies and habits are changing, with direct ramifications for package design decisions. Paco Underhill, in his book Why We Buy, notes four cultural factors that influence the way consumers shop today—and that affect how consumer packaged goods companies draw consumers’ attention.

1. America is aging. Visual acuity is becoming a more important factor that package designers need to address. Exercises are conducted in which consumers wear smeared glass lenses or attempt to tear open flexible packaging using gloves—all to simulate the difficulties that older consumers have opening, operating and reading packages. Yet package designs today—often designed by young people—routinely befuddle older consumers at a time when more product information than ever is included on packaging.

2. Gender differences are eroding. Evolving gender roles are influencing purchase decisions. By the late 1990s, men were making a discernable portion of purchases of feminine hygiene products. More recently, women have begun to shop in auto aftermarket aisles. Lines have blurred for the products themselves as well. Fragrances used to be the domain of



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CONTENTS

women, but today any number of body washes, colognes and other fragrances are marketed specifically to men. The packaging needs to satisfy visual cues that are specific for each gender.

3. Shopping patterns are evolving. The family unit is shopping together more, and dad appears to be less likely to say “no” when kids pick up an impulse item. And shoppers may enter the store to get one item but typically leave also carrying an impulse purchase or two.

4. Immigrant affluence is increasing. In America, immigrants are moving from the ranks of the poor to the middle class. With it, the need for multilingual packaging is greater. Flexible packaging, in particular with advancing technology that makes shorter runs possible, is an ideal packaging tactic for capturing this growing and evolving segment of consumers.

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For great flexible packaging, know your consumer

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Once you understand the forces that influence consumer shopping patterns, it becomes important to understand how they shop and why they make the purchasing decisions they do. Two effective ways to gain this knowledge for shaping package design are eye tracking and ethnography.

You’ve created multiple layouts for your flexible package, and you need to determine the best design option. Foremost, you want to answer two questions:

• Which flexible package design provides the most shelf visibility?

• What elements on your flexible package did shoppers see, and for how long?

Eye tracking is one approach that can provide these answers.

“The potential loss of sales to a business by diluting their equity and getting lost on shelf is enormous, and it’s not a risk one wants to take in this day and age,” says Pamela Waldron, global director, Oral Care, in Johnson & Johnson’s Global Strategic Insights Group. “We use eye tracking frequently to assess new label design for major brands. We would not implement a graphic label design change without understanding its impact on visibility and imagery.”

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Eye tracking can be done in at least two ways:

• If the goal is to measure shelf visibility of a film label, pillow bag, or standup pouch, individual consumers can view a series of store scenes in which shelves are presented on a screen. Consumers view categories as if they were shopping, and using a joystick, they click to navigate between categories. Their eye fixations are recorded and used to produce a heat map showing the areas on a package or shelf that drew the most fixations.

This type of eye-tracking research confirmed that Tyson Foods selected a label that works well with its clear-film packages of Wright Brand bacon. The entire package supports the brand’s premium position, and eye tracking showed that consumers foremost noticed the brand name—91% of the time. In quantitative research, the design was noted within 4 seconds by 26% of consumers—a significant improvement from the previous design. Tyson’s use of eye tracking is discussed in more detail later in the design section of this playbook.

• If the objective is to understand shoppers’ in-store habits, a mobile approach can be used in which the shopper wears a special pair of glasses to record viewing data while shopping.

“You cannot close the sale unless somebody has seen the package first on the shelf,” says Christian Simms, associate director of consumer market knowledge at Procter & Gamble. “With eye tracking, you can determine if you are stopping consumers with your product.”

Some CPG companies conduct their own eye-tracking research, but this requires a substantial capital investment for special glasses and other equipment used in conducting the studies. More often, they approach market research companies to do it for them, working with a

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Label upgrade: Consumer research showed that a gold-outlined shield and crest area containing red, white, and gold elements on a blue background provides greater visual impact, as consumers can also see the quality of the thick bacon strips through the package’s clear film.



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cross-functional team at the CPG company that includes members of marketing, branding, and R&D.

Here are four tips for conducting an eye-tracking study:

1. Define the questions to be answered (i.e., .Do shoppers see the product on shelf? How much attention did the product get, compared with competing products?)

2. Define experimental details from exposure time (timed or shopper controlled), stimulus (mock-ups or renderings), and experimental design issues such as randomization, sample size, and scripts/prompts.

3. Conduct a pilot test to ensure that the prompts and environment elicit the interaction desired.

4. Test full items in realistic environments, if possible, for maximum validity.

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Assemble a cross-functional teamThe axiom is two (or more) heads are better than one. Yet far too often, package design still is a somewhat isolated affair in which departments work in “silos,” seemingly with little understanding as to how the decisions they make can affect a package as it moves through the value chain.

Do you know, for example, whether it’s worth the extra cost to your senior management to create a shaped pouch versus a conventional pouch, and what those costs entail? This is just one example that demonstrates the critical need for a cross-functional team to drive any project that involves flexible packaging. Different project requirements may dictate variations in the team members, but generally, any flexible packaging design project should include the following internal members:

Brand and/or category manager, marketing manager, sales manager, package design manager, innovation manager, project manager, packaging engineer, and operations manager. Input also is essential from a packaging performance technician and materials purchasing. Another key player: a research analyst who can assist in determining package requirements in the creative process (will you need a functional prototype or need to do testing prior to market launch?) Also include vendors, from the converter to film and other suppliers to contract packagers. And don’t forget about consumer input.



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Vendors and consumers are becoming an integral part of the mix in the “open innovation” approach that a growing number of CPG companies are adopting in creating flexible packaging. Product manufacturers that were once very secretive and protective about creative ideas—even among their own departments—are becoming all-inclusive. They’re looking to their supply chains and to consumers, casting a wider net in search of innovative ideas.

Procter & Gamble, Kraft, General Mills, Clorox, and Estée Lauder are among companies embracing “open innovation.” They understand that some great packaging ideas may lurk outside of their companies.

Packaging & Technology Integrated Solutions makes these recommendations for a successful open-innovation strategy:

• Establish trust in relationships with partners to forge win-win scenarios.

• Look for a strong value proposition in which each partner gains something.

• Select the right internal leader for the program—a strategic thinker with strong knowledge of trends.

• Don’t get hung up on cost early on. Consumer value may overcome that issue later.

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Assemble a cross-functional team



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From a cross-representative team, you can learn the flexible packaging-related answers to questions such as the following: Which type of film will best suit my needs? Which temperature and humidity conditions do the various films work best and worst in? What are the considerations in developing a shaped pouch that can help marketing but that works well in production, while also saving my company money?

A cross-functional team also provides the opportunity for streamlined planning that begins with production and works backward.

Vendors can offer ideas for both the primary and secondary package, which can provide benefits such as a strong product shelf life. Such was the case in the UK, with Melts chocolate candies from Thornton’s. They’re wrapped in a special metalized, biodegradable film. The cellulose-based, biodegradable film, made from renewable wood pulp, provides a very high moisture barrier that keeps the candies in premium condition. When the product is gone, the film is suitable for home composting.

Beyond creative and innovation considerations, it is essential for marketing and operations to work seamlessly to achieve the best possible flexible package. Operations should be up to speed on marketing’s needs from packaging and, conversely, marketing should understand that even minimal design changes could significantly impact the package’s performance on a production line. It is important to note that lean changeover is both a tactic and a companywide strategy, and senior management must direct it. Changeover costs are rarely measured, but they typically can amount to thousands of dollars per hour.

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Assemble a cross-functional team

Biodegradable film: In the U.K., Thornton’s Melts chocolate candies are wrapped in metalized, biodegradable film in which the level of metal is less than 0.02%—slowing the film’s degradation by only a few days.



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Five steps to great design with flexible filmFlexible packaging is widening its reach as a preferred option as marketers fine-tune the specific results they are trying to achieve through packaging, and package development teams gain a better understand of what different resins can or can’t do. Creative teams with clear branding objectives and who do their homework on the options available in film can harness flexible packaging’s strengths through design to achieve their goals more effectively.

A well-executed flexible package design not only allows for attractive aesthetic finishing touches, it also can help protect the product and improve total bottom-line results. Well-thought-out flexible packages also can reduce the use of materials and energy, and require less space on trucks and in the pantry. Savvy brand owners are embracing these all-encompassing benefits of flexible packaging as they craft product messages that make eco-friendliness a cornerstone of the brand strategy. But to be successful, any effort involving flexible packaging requires a working knowledge of materials, film resins, application techniques, the capabilities and limitations related to film shrinkage, and printing, among other considerations.

“All flexible packaging done well is a combination of technology and art,” says Jackie DeLise, vice president of new business development at Zunda Group, a design agency. “And portability is perhaps the key word when you’re thinking about working with flexible packaging.” Here are five considerations to get you started on the road to successful design in flexible packaging.



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1. Determine your objectives.

Is flexible film the star of your package or a supporting cast member? What is your product’s distribution channel? Will the package be in stores only or will it have to survive plenty of handling in the harsh, single-parcel fulfillment environment of products ordered online? If the latter distribution channel is included in your marketing effort, then reverse-printing or special coatings to guard against scuffing must be considered. Will the package lay flat to preserve space in the pantry or stand up in the refrigerator? These and other decisions affect many aspects of flexible package design.

2. Assess the product’s planned duration on shelf and flexible packaging’s role in the marketing effort.

It would drive up costs to make design changes on multiple components of a short-run package, but that’s precisely what too many brand owners do—at somewhat avoidable additional cost. What if printing on just one of the elements—the label—changed?

In coffee, for example, new batches can require only a change in graphic elements on the label on a bag. The rest of the package remains the same. Seattle-based Made in Washington Stores took this very approach in introducing and retiring new flavor varieties of its Roasted in Seattle coffee brand. The three-ply silver foil laminate bags didn’t change from batch to batch. New roasts were signaled by changing graphics on the pressure-sensitive labels applied to the bags, flexo-printed in black plus two custom colors. The clever labels helped Roasted in Seattle’s sales surge during a recent holiday period, with minimal additional cost.

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Five steps to great design with flexible film

Limited batches: Digitally printed labels enable Made in Washington Stores to frequently introduce and retire batches of its Roasted in Seattle Coffee. Some graphic elements on the pressure-sensitive labels change, but the design doesn’t change on the three-ply silver foil laminate bags.



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3. Understand what appeals to consumers.

Product differentiation is more important than ever at today’s retail shelf. A 2010 American Marketing Association/Market Force Information poll found that only 8% of consumer purchases were attributable to advertising, while 35% of their purchase decisions were attributable to packaging. In addition, it’s known that squeezable, spouted pouches are effective in courting kids, and that vented flexible bags in food help consumers save meal preparation time and steps. Know your consumers and what they like.

4. Establish package performance criteria.

An important question to answer early in developing a quality flexible package is this: What does the package need to do, from a materials standpoint, to perform well in the market?

The answer to this question could take in everything from package visibility (i.e., robust graphics and structures that improve findability on shelf ) to pairing the right inks and package surfaces for optimum legibility to selecting the appropriate material, taking variables such as package surface and contour into consideration.

Proper film selection is critical to success as well. Consider pressure-sensitive film, which no longer is just for labels. Brand owners are now using it for product security, authenticity, and consumer protection as well. When choosing the appropriate product security method (overt, covert, or forensic, i.e., traceability), choosing or developing the right pressure-sensitive film to help support and convey the desired authenticity state is key to the early design and long-term security and profitability of the product.

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Marketers and designers, to get the results they want, also need to understand something about the physical properties of different types of flexible film. This sounds obvious, but horror stories abound about flexible packaging projects that had to be delayed or started over—at great time and cost—because the package that marketing envisioned on a computer screen ran into serious performance issues on a production line, in distribution, or during product use or storage.

Film resins have different properties and perform best under different conditions. Therefore, it is critical to know at the outset what you want, from a functional standpoint, from your flexible package. If your objective is a colorful juice pouch with a spout or a zippered snack bag, the film needs to work well with the fitment to prevent product leakage.

Consider, too, the distribution channel of your product. For example, the lighting in one type of store could be very different from another channel. The aisle widths and lengths also can vary, posing different challenges of flexible packaging. If one package is a flexible bag holding 36 rolls of toilet tissue in a dimly lit club store and another is decorative bag for a brush set at a Sephora store, the level of lighting and the aisle widths will be very different, and they could influence film and coatings selections.

Among other considerations are safety and the environment in which your product will live.

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5. Consider the printing process.

Packaging consultant Sterling Anthony identifies flexography as the most-utilized printing method in flexible packaging, with gravure coming in a respectable second. He says both methods boast technological advantages that make it more affordable for brand owners to have packaging with high visual impact that includes razor-sharp graphics. More recently, “high-definition” flexo printing offers a higher line screen and increased dots per inch, giving marketers the level of visual detail they need from photography and illustrations.

The question today is this: Is flexo or gravure the right choice for your flexible packaging project? The answer depends on a number of variables, from the size and frequency of package runs and changes to the design, to the nature of the work that needs to be done to budget considerations.

It is recommended that design teams thoroughly understand the role of printing in their packaging project and investigate the strengths and weaknesses of all printing processes that are under consideration before selecting one.

Don’t overlook digital printing as you mull your options. Digital package and label printing is used far less than other printing methods but forecast to triple in growth by 2014, according to Pira International. Brand marketers’ demand for customization and shorter press runs—in part driven by labeling—will require a closer look at digital printing to limit dormant inventory and answer retailers’ and consumers’ desires for continually changing merchandise offerings in stores.

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Two ways to justify package designMoney merely can’t be spent on a whim for package design. The design process can be costly, and there needs to be justification for the dollars spent. Ultimately, the investment needs to be justified to senior management, which operates under the notion that “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

Jeff George, vice president of research and development at Sara Lee Corp., says a step in the right direction is letting packaging lead the entire product-development process. George refers to this approach as “packaging-based product innovation.”

George adds, “Rather than developing the product first and having packaging come in as an afterthought, let packaging be the driver of the overall innovation proposition.”

At some point, an important early output of a creative team’s efforts will be initial packages for market testing. You’re looking for the right label on the right package, which is highly visible in the store and compels shoppers to place your product in their cart. But along the way, you also can make package tweaks that deliver to consumers the value they expect from your brand, while also optimizing materials and equipment to minimize costs.




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Here are two approaches for justifying your package design.

• Eye tracking

Eye tracking, mentioned earlier, can help justify the creative team’s work. Returning to the example of Tyson Foods’ Wright Brand bacon, mentioned earlier in this design section of the playbook, Tyson was planning to make a significant investment in a completely redesigned label, which serves as the main “touch point” with consumers for its vacuum-packed Wright Brand bacon. Tyson repositioned the brand with the tagline “more of what you love about bacon” to focus on the thick, delectable bacon strips. To reflect the heightened brand positioning, the label underwent a significant upgrade, featuring a gold-outlined shield and crest area to connote premium quality.

Tyson had consumers shop a mock-up “bacon aisle” and included eye tracking and quantitative research to validate the appearance and investment in the new label. The results, mentioned earlier, were that with the new label, consumers foremost noticed the brand name 91% of the time, and the design was noted by 26% of consumers within 4 seconds of looking at a shelf set—a significant improvement from the previous design. The lesson learned is that demonstrated improvement in product findability gave Tyson the validation it needed to go “all in” on the new label.

• Inter-departmental learning

Validating a package design requires financial metrics to gain a buy-in from senior management. An increasingly popular approach at CPG companies is to “walk in the other

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Two ways to justify package design



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person’s shoes.” People from each facet of the create team spend time interacting with other departments and learn their “language.” Designers, for example, visit the finance department to learn how to present their creative ideas in ways that incorporate costs into the picture. This approach can pay huge dividends in validating the expenses of a packaging project.

Taking this approach, some product manufacturers are finding success by letting a package design pull itself into the marketplace through quantifiable cost savings and consumer benefits rather than the more common method of the marketing department pushing a design into the market that fails to link anticipated benefits to the overall business strategy. A closer look at Roasted in Seattle coffee bags, discussed earlier in this playbook, offers an illustrative example.

Made in Washington Stores’ Roasted in Seattle line grew to well over 50% of the Washington State-based regional chain’s coffee category sales during a recent holiday period, and returned the stores’ total coffee category to growth, reversing a two-year trend.

The retailer accomplished this result by making printing modifications to the pressure-sensitive labels applied to three-ply silver foil laminate bags as it introduced and retired small coffee batches exclusive to its stores. Nothing about the actual bags changed.

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Changes were made to graphics and other visual elements on the labels to signal the different roasts. These elements included an illustration and text that distinguished each flavor variety, such as an umbrella signifying Rainy Day Roast.

From a production perspective, limiting changes to the label design provided economies of scale as each flavor variety came and went, yet, “These regional characteristics of the Seattle area, presented on the label, reflect the made-locally appeal of the brand,” says David Kendall, principal at Kendall Ross, which worked on the label design.

The cross-functional team that spearheaded the design understood not only Made In Washington’s marketing needs, but also the manufacturing capabilities and flexibility needed prior to launching the package-creation stage.

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10 steps for shaping your own ethnographic researchBesides eye tracking, ethnography is another way to gain knowledge about the forces that influence consumer shopping habits. Ethnographic research is a technique that is fast gaining favor for providing reliable insights about how consumers view and use products—and it might also provide perceptive creative team members with clues as to how flexible packaging can enhance product value.

In simplest terms, ethnography is the study of human behavior in its natural environment. A CPG company’s packaging team members can observe consumers as they prepare to visit a store, when they shop, and when they use the product in the home.

A well-rounded ethnographic team should include a representative from R&D, a brand manager, a marketer, and a designer, advises Melinda Wooten, owner and partner at KW Strategems and former manager of consumer insights at E&J Gallo Winery, which conducts ethnographic research as part of the package-creation process. Wooten has spoken about ethnography at many recent conferences, where she has offered the following steps for conducting effective ethnographic research:

1. Control expectations. Identify two or three objectives.

2. Make early decisions early. Will you select a moderator internally or hire one from outside your company?




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3. Open the interviews. Decide how you will dress and act so that the interviewee feels comfortable. Join in whatever activity your interview subjects are doing to establish a bond.

4. Have icebreakers prepared. Get into your interviewee’s mind-set. Ask what their top three concerns are right now. Ask open-ended questions.

5. Watch how products are used. Who is present, do they help them get into the package or use the product, and how do they feel about it? How does the interviewee handle your package?

6. Accompany your consumer to the store. Ask them to drive you through their normal shopping route, and talk to them about it. Inside the store, what goes in the shopping cart first, and why?

7. Debrief the interview. Review the scribe’s notes for those “aha” moments.

8. Recap the project. This should be done before the end of the week of the interviews, while information and observations are fresh.

9. Create a record. Include visual stimulations and create a video record or even a photo album of your encounter with each consumer who was interviewed.

10. Translate insights into stellar design. Easier said than done, but your design will benefit by actual ethnographic research.

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10 steps for shaping your own ethnographic research



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Outsource or in-house? 7 evaluation stepsYour flexible packaging project includes not only decorating the package, but selecting the right materials, printing processes, and vendors and assuring that all components are oriented correctly on each package.

Your CPG company may or may not have in-house capabilities to handle each of these functions internally. If not, one viable option is turning to a contract packager to do the work for you. But to get the best results from contract packaging, you have to take the right approach, which varies for each project and each packaged goods company.

Heed these seven steps when considering the services of a contract packager.

• Thoroughly evaluate the make versus buy decision.

• Ask the contract packager to demonstrate proficiency in working with flexible packaging.

• Confirm that your package runs efficiently on the contract packager’s line.

• Watch for redundancy in the contract packager’s facilities.




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• Communicate your findings clearly with all the right people on your team.

• Demand a detailed quality audit agreement with the contract packager.

• Understand how you intend to use the contract packager—is it a short-term tactical relationship or a long-term strategic partnership?

Michael Richmond, president of PTIS, says critical considerations involve analyzing time-to-shelf requirements. How soon does the product need to be in the market?

“If the company has to be first to shelf with a significant product or packaging innovation, then speed-to-market may be highly important,” Richmond explains.

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Trends in flexible packagingHere are some recent trends we’re seeing with flexible packaging:

1. Proliferation in easy open, reclose options. A much wider range of opening treatments, fitments, and closures are available today than ever before, including linear tear characteristics, reclosable zippers that don’t require any tearing of the pouch header to open, and spouts for liquid pouches. Machinery has advanced too, with increased ability to apply these features in-line during filling and sealing with minimal downtime issues.

2. Clear, high-barrier films. A new generation of clear films and coatings are beginning to approach the barrier properties of foil and metallized films. This provides new opportunities to showcase appetizing products while avoiding flex-cracking problems associated with foil and some older coating technologies. These structures also offer the potential for microwave-compatible pouches.

3. Penetration into entirely new categories. Flexible packaging tends to sweep through entire product categories, though admittedly over a period of years. Classic examples include tuna fish and pet food, where retort pouches are now common after decades of cans, and more recently baby food, where retort pouches (along with thermoformed trays) are replacing glass jars. Flexibles are also being used for fertilizers where resealability is

David Newcorn, Packaging World’s VP/Digital & Custom

Media, conceived of the Packager’s Playbook series. Formerly an editor

for Packaging World, he extensively interviewed brand owners, consultants, and suppliers

for these articles.

by david newcorn,VP/Digital & Custom Media



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a key feature. What’s next? Viscous condiments, which can be more efficiently evacuated from a pouch, is a prospect, and has been common for years in western and eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Health and beauty products are also ripe for conversion—think shampoo and liquid soaps. Categories dominated by metal cans (canned soup, canned fruit) or glass jars are also susceptible to conversion. The holy grail for the flexible packaging supplier community is the cereal aisle. While flexibles have made inroads at both the high end (think granola) and low end (value cereals), experts agree that cereal makers simply have too much invested in existing bag-and-box equipment to change anytime soon. Replacement is further complicated given the predominance of recycled paperboard cartons made from renewable resources in this application. And just because a package converts to flexible doesn’t mean consumers in a given country—especially the United States—will accept it. That said, a sweeping trend is that brand owners are now taking a global approach to innovation. New packaging structures or formats—including flexibles—now come from anywhere in the world. That’s a change from the past practice of pushing out innovations from the developed world.

4. Sustainability advances and challenges. One of the classic arguments for flexible packaging over other formats is that there’s simply less of it for the consumer to dispose of once the product is consumed. Product waste can be reduced too, since highly viscous products can be more fully evacuated, leading to less product waste trapped inside the package. But with flexible packaging itself, a number of attempts are being made at

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Trends in flexible packaging

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increasing sustainability. The move to thinner films is the most popular route, but can pose challenges to shelf life. In the biopolymer arena, a lot of energy, time, and money are continuing to be invested in films made from renewable resources such as corn or grasses. That effort is not without controversy, both surrounding the use of land to grow packaging feedstocks versus food, as well as the lack of a widespread composting infrastructure in the U.S. In an intruiging return to flexible packaging’s roots, solution-cast regenerated cellulose, the earliest high-volume clear packaging film, is experiencing a resurgence as its bio-derived nature is valued along with its useful properties.

Recycling is a tougher problem to solve. Even if packagers were to switch to single-material structures without sacrificing performance (a huge problem in and of itself, especially where barrier is required), the recycling infrastructure in the U.S. and many other countries is still frustratingly geared towards rigid containers. Rigid containers offer high volumes of easily recycled materials that provide critical mass for recyclers and favorable economics for all in the value chain. Flexible packaging, along with blisters and clamshells, is simply not collected for recycling in most municipalities. Post-consumer recycled is a non-starter for most applications: consistent, high-quality supplies are hard to maintain over time (a direct consequence of the lack of recycling infrastructure), and the hit on material performance can be prohibitive. Waste-to-energy is an end-of-life option for flexible packaging, but only if there are an adequate number of such facilities in the country of use.

5. More layers in coextrusion. Though it sounds counter-intuitive, the addition of layers into a flexible packaging structure can actually lead to improvements in economics and functionality. How? One way is that it allows for more precise control of the layers. Three- and five-layer film co-extrusion manufacturing lines are limited by size of the extruders and

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the design of the dies. More converters are moving to seven- and nine-layer co-extrusion lines that provide more flexibility to provide desired functionality, thickness and cost without over-engineering the structure. One technique is to use less expensive resins as bulking layers. Another is to split the barrier layer into two separate thinner layers, with one serving as a “backup” in case a pinhole breeches the other barrier layer. This approach also multiplies the number of material interfaces a permeant must cross, further reducing permeation rates. Several technologies for splitting barrier materials into many layers are being introduced, with data showing more than linear improvements in barrier.

6. Shaped packaging. The current generation of form/fill/seal packaging is able to produce more bag shapes and styles than ever before. That’s important to consumer packaged goods companies hungry for new shapes that stand out on the shelf. Shaped pouches that cut a sort of two-dimensional, curvy shape have been out for years, though mostly in other countries. Machinery manufacturers are working on equipment that will create pouches that have a conical or three-dimensional shape. A challenge here is to hold down the design waste inherent in more radical profiles.

7. More retortable packages. A retort package is “cooked” after it is filled at high enough temperatures for long enough to kill bacteria and microorganisms that can spoil food. Metal cans and glass jars are classic retort packages. But several factors are driving the growth of retortable flexible packaging. Such packs are easier to open (versus cans), weigh much less, and are said to have a smaller environmental impact versus metal cans and glass jars. They minimize loss from denting or breakage and also enable package innovations such as cook-in capability or food product innovation such as tuna packed without added water or oil. Finally, the food from retortable packages often tastes better because of less abusive

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sterilization heating cycles: The flat geometry of the flexible package means that food closest to the surface of the doesn’t need to be heated for as long or as high a temperature before the food in the center has received the proper time/temperature exposure to ensure sterility.

8. PET film production shifts overseas. As anyone knows who’s been involved with flexible packaging made from polyester (also known as BOPET or biaxially oriented PET), there’s been a shift in production of these films to overseas producers. This affects a huge swath of flexible packaging—most stand-up pouches, for example, consist of reverse-printed PET laminated to some other layer. The major trend driving this is that U.S. production capacity for PET films is increasingly being diverted to the higher-gauge specialty films used in the consumer electronics industry, which is a higher-margin application compared to packaging. This trend is connected to the huge investment in mega-biaxial orientation lines in Asia, which make older and lower productivity lines less competitive in thin-gauge film. Converters are having to source the material from abroad, especially Asia, resulting in much longer lead times. The upshot: reduced flexibility for brand owners to react quickly to changes in the market and longer package development timelines.

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Best practices in flexible package developmentThere are a number of best practices you can follow to design a flexible package that meets your product’s marketing and production requirements today and in the future. Here are eight:

1. Define all the requirements. Sounds obvious, but consultants and converters alike continue to report this as a stumbling block for some. Define not only the objectives and parameters for performance and cost for the package itself (barrier, package style or format constraints, special product compatibility needs, regulatory requirements, easy-open, reclosability, graphics and printing requirements, etc.) but also the equipment angle. Is it going to be packed in one plant, or on six lines on machines from three different manufacturers in two plants hundreds of miles apart? Knowing all the requirements can help engineer the best structure for today and the future.

2. Make sure you really understand the product protection requirements. Just saying you need a six-month shelf life is insufficient. Know what will compromise the product the most in those six months—is it oxygen, moisture, or light? Also, when determining shelf life, don’t overlook the distribution environment. Will you be shipping at high altitudes (such as over mountains) or in extremely hot and humid (or hot and dry) climates? As more products receive broader distribution, packagers need to be aware

by david newcorn



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of the impacts. Really understand how many times it will be “touched” from your packaging line through your supply chain to store shelves. The more precisely you know the product protection requirements, the more you can avoid over-engineering or under-engineering a package.

3. Understand the total system cost. Don’t focus on the cost of the roll of film. Determine the total cost to get saleable product to the consumer. Switching to another structure that saves a few dollars on film costs doesn’t do you any good if it results thousands of dollars in waste in the packaging line due to rejects and leakers. This can have particularly dire consequences if you’re producing (and selling) product at full capacity, because you take a double hit for every failed pack—once on product cost, and once on lack of profit from selling that pack. Substituting higher-performance materials such as ionomers or copolymers can replace commodity polyethylene as the sealant layer, maintaining desired stiffness, reducing leakers, and enabling faster sealing speeds.

4. Coordinate suppliers. Early on in the process, meet with your converter, form/fill/seal equipment manufacturer (and contract packager, if appropriate) to coordinate a flexible packaging specification that plays to everyone’s strengths, versus independently imposing a predetermined spec. If you have a package with more stringent requirements, include in the discussion the converter’s upstream raw material provider too. Such up-front coordination and open discussions can not only avoid problems, especially with newly developed material structures, but also can help optimize your flexible package construction right out of the gate.

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Best practices in flexible package development



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5. Match the material to the machine. Because the machine should be designed to run at specified speeds and efficiencies, the material must perform at those same specifications. Often a material has been optimized for current equipment but will not perform the same on new equipment, especially as newer equipment is generally rated to perform at higher outputs. Involving the material supplier early (see above) can eliminate any packaging performance issues and will allow time if modifications are required.

6. Assess the packaging line. Sometimes, small changes on the packaging line or distribution environment can enable the use of less or thinner materials in the package itself. It could be something simple as the types of rails used in a conveyor system, or ensuring they’re maintained properly so there are no sharp points, or properly maintaining packaging machines with regular cleaning and aligning of the seal jaws to improve seal consistency and minimize temperature and pressure requirements. Sometimes spending a bit more on a thicker corrugated shipper can net you savings by enabling the use of a thinner package structure.

7. Investigate consolidation. If you have four flexible package structures that are fairly similar, consider using a single structure for all four packages. One or two may be over-engineered, but you may end up saving money due to economies of scale. Also assess with your film supplier the impact on film costs of a slightly shorter or narrower package, and smaller or different seals. The savings are sometimes surprising.

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8. Plan for optimization. Often with a new flexible package, the structure is over-engineered to prevent failures or surprises in the field and the package is larger than it needs to be to provide tolerance with the equipment. But it’s equally common to move on to the next project, with little time or thought given to optimizing that structure—until a sudden cost-cutting directive from above causes a mad scramble at the supplier to suddenly cut costs or risk losing the business. Instead, build a plan for optimization up front. One approach is to immediately optimize the package as soon as it’s out in the field and apparent that the current structure is holding up, and not waiting six or 12 months. Another approach is to plan milestones by revisiting the package in six months, 12 months, etc. That way, both the packaging department and the supplier have a known timetable with which to work toward optimizing the package structure.

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Balancing risk with innovationOne of the major roles of the packaging R&D function is to identify and address all of the risk areas in a project, one by one. However, being willing to try new films and package formats—even at the risk of commercial failure—can sometimes be the price of innovation.

One well-known retailer skips consumer testing entirely when launching new private label packaging. Instead, it just simply launches new packages. The pack’s success or failure in the marketplace is the test. Another consumer packaged goods company purposely invents temporary brands to test new concepts without risking any damage to the real brand’s equity; if the package format succeeds, the temporary brand is replaced with the actual brand.

When trying new or unproven film structures, sealing technologies, or even equipment, be willing to relax your standards in the name of innovation. Build in time for working out kinks, whether it’s folding the film over the forming collar without cracking, or sealing the film. Be willing to run the equipment slower, especially for more experimental films, machines, or package formats.

Comparing a promising new technology to a mature one that’s had 30 years of cost engineered out of it is unrealistic. New technology always has inherent risks that may or may not be known or solved yet. Balance the risk against the benefits.

Always playing it safe can result in a different kind of failure—having your competitor pass you by.

by david newcorn



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Building supplier relationships that foster innovationWhy are some consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies more innovative than others when it comes to flexible packaging?

One reason is that some CPG companies’ relentless focus on cost optimization pits them against the very suppliers on whom they’re relying for innovation. Suppliers are understandably reluctant to introduce new ideas to customers who are unwilling to pay for it, insist on exclusivity, regularly bid out the business, or pass on original ideas to their existing suppliers. Bottom line: Price shopping may yield a converter with the lowest price, but it likely will rule out the one to help your brand with the most innovation.

Unfortunately, packaging engineers who believe in the value of true supplier partnerships are increasingly being overruled by procurement personnel tasked with driving out cost from the supply chain.

Inherent separation of duties and conflicting bonus structures at larger CPG companies can create obstacles to innovation. Procurement departments want cost reduction, sometimes at the expense of value; packaging and marketing departments want speed-to-market; and brand managers focus on sales growth. Often there is no linkage between the four. The result: stagnated thinking and stifled innovation. Talk to suppliers in a cross-functional way

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to mitigate this tendency. But realize that unless the CPG company is willing to have cross-functional coordination, the best supplier cooperation can be stifled.

One CPG company deliberately signs five-year agreements with its converters—in a world where the norm is one to three years—so that the converter will invest in innovation on the CPG company’s behalf. Guaranteeing a certain size business over a sustained period of time can lead to a partnership that enables new ideas from the supplier to flourish.

Finally, don’t sit on the fence. Some CPG companies who style themselves as innovators actually lack the culture to make quick decisions. Look at your decision-making process to see how much it encourages or empowers—rather than hinders—decision-making when it comes to packaging innovation.

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Building supplier relationships that foster innovation



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How flexible packaging projects failMany things can go wrong in the process of bringing a flexible package to market. Cautionary tales abound:

1. Not understanding consumer or retailer needs. There are many examples of this, but here’s a particularly high-profile one. At the behest of a large global retailer, one leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) company spent a lot of time and money putting a well-known household cleaning product into a stand-up pouch. Sustainability was a driver, as well as the fact that it was a popular package format for similar products in Europe. Tens of thousands of cases were produced before it became clear that consumers, ever creatures of habit, weren’t buying it. Another pitfall: designing something that consumers may like, but that doesn’t work well in distribution systems or on store shelves, causing retailers to reject it.

2. Under-marketing the advantage of flexible packaging. In 2008, Unilever experimented with Ragu and Bertolli brand pasta sauces in a pouch. The pouch eliminated breakage concerns associated with glass, was microwavable right in the package, and resulted in less waste for the consumer to discard. But the pouches were at a higher price point than the jars displayed right next to them. Some industry experts feel that the package might have caught on had Unilever marketed these advantages to consumers right on the package. Tip: Consider lowering the price of a product in a new flexible package to entice consumers to abandon the legacy package format.

by david newcorn

READ MORE»

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Pouch provides pasta sauce in a snap



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3. Poorly defined or changing requirements. Not doing your homework up front in terms of fleshing out the package requirements is a sure-fire recipe for failure. Alternatively, rushing a new film or package format to market without fully investing in validating the idea using test rolls of film can also result in failure. Finally, changing requirements halfway through a project may not cause failure, but will likely result in a missed launch window, extra cost and delayed sales and profits.

4. Too many projects under way at once. The “mental make-ready” time of having to constantly switch mental gears between different projects can add delays, introduce mistakes, and reduce overall quality of work. You’re better off knocking out projects sequentially with fewer distractions.

5. Poor supplier coordination. Snags may occur due to unclear, inadvertent or incorrect assumptions surrounding package size, shape, material, and machinability. Avoid these bottlenecks by bringing together both machinery and materials suppliers, setting clear expectations, and including them on your team. Ensure that everyone reviews and commits to a common timeline and any potential technical hurdles are jointly discussed and understood. This worthwhile step not only reduces the potential for things to go wrong. The shared clarity and responsibility can also speed up resolutions and minimize finger-pointing when problems occur.

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How flexible packaging projects fail



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6. Poor internal communication practices. Finally, when things do start to go wrong, a culture where bad news gets hidden for fear of shooting the messenger will just make things worse. Creating an open communication climate where bad news gets reported and acted on immediately will yield positive results in the end.

7. No contingency plan. Selecting a given construction and discarding all other possibilities can be risky. Say your new structure for a frozen-food product passed all the tests, but once it’s out in production and distribution, reports of package failures start pouring in. Do you start over? The better alternative is to work on multiple constructions in parallel during the package development process. If your chosen construction fails, you don’t have to go back to the drawing board at the last minute.

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Trends in form/fill/seal equipmentHere are some of the latest trends in form/fill/seal equipment:

1. Ultrasonic sealing. Some form/fill/seal machinery manufacturers are debuting ultrasonic sealing capability, which has several advantages over traditional heat sealing. First, ultrasonic sealing has the ability to seal through certain food particulates. Ultrasonic technology suppliers claim this means a drastic reduction in rejected bags and a much lower chance of leakers, a critical issue for oxygen-sensitive products like shredded cheese or lettuce. Then there is the potential for film savings. For example, on a typical pillow-style bag made with a laminated structure, traditional heated end seals are typically 3/8” wide. But ultrasonic seals are just 2 mm wide. That could mean a savings of more than ½” per bag. Some industries may be able to reduce the headspace in the finished bag since having product in the seal area is no longer a concern. This could result in further film savings and machine increases. Also, there’s the potential to reduce or eliminate the sealant layer in film structures, reducing material cost. Finally, ultrasonic sealing systems have the potential to “detect” whether a package has a potentially bad seal by measuring the time and power required to make an acceptable seal. If either parameter falls outside of a pre-set window, it could indicate a poor seal, allowing the bagger to reject the package for manual inspection. This could reduce or eliminate the requirement in some industries to manually check 100% of bags for leakers, saving labor and increasing throughput. The downside? Not all film structures can be sealed with ultrasonic technology. And ultrasonic sealing adds quite a bit to the machinery cost when compared with traditional heat-sealing systems.

David Newcorn, Packaging World’s VP/Digital & Custom

Media, conceived of the Packager’s Playbook series. Formerly an editor

for Packaging World, he extensively interviewed brand owners, consultants, and suppliers

for these articles.

by david newcorn,VP/Digital & Custom Media



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2. Better sealing technology. Improvements in heat-seal technology provide greater forgiveness in the traditional heat-sealing operation, permitting the use of more economically attractive polymers in some applications.

3. Faster changeover and more reliability. Packagers’ relentless focus on reducing both planned and unplanned downtime is driving machine builders to reduce the number of adjustments on their bagging machines for changeovers. This can be as simple as adding color-coded centerlining features, clearly marking where to move a given knob or adjustment for precise, repeatable changeover settings throughout the machine. Or it can involve reducing the amount of time required to change a roll of film to less than 60 seconds.

4. Better networking. Many form/fill/seal equipment manufactures are beginning to make it easier to network their machines into a plant supervisory control system. A key benefit is compatibility with centralized plant automated data collection systems. This can lead to enhanced line control—in some cases, the form/fill/seal machine can slow down or speed up automatically based on signals from upstream or downstream equipment, ensuring a smooth and balanced production line.

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Trends in form/fill/seal equipment



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5. Advanced servo technology. Proprietary, “black box”-style controls are on the way out, and off-the-shelf controls are in. Many machine builders are beginning to switch to integrated servo drive/motor units where the drive is literally built into the motor. Benefits include less wiring for the machine builder, which can reduce or even eliminate the control cabinet, as well as simplify troubleshooting. Also, the drive/motor combos signal when they begin to fail, and make it easier to quickly swap out a bad motor/drive to quickly resume production. Servo technology itself is increasing to the point where machines can produce bags at higher speeds and accuracies. Better diagnostics help detect and prevent potential failures. Controllers that accommodate open standards such PLCopen are gaining traction, thanks to flexible packaging-specific software functionality, such as controlling film registration or regulating sealing jaw temperature.

6. Higher speeds. Some horizontal pouch-filling equipment is approaching speeds of 1,000 packages/min utilizing multiple lanes, making it possible to entertain the idea of investing in new equipment to replace high-speed machinery infrastructure currently running glass jars and metal cans. Vertical equipment continues the trend toward continuous-motion operation to achieve speeds upward of 200 bags/min for some laminated film structures, and up to 130 bags/min for LDPE.

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7. More flexibility. For years the single most important driver in f/f/s machine design was speed, often at the expense of flexibility. Machinery had to be purpose-built for specific bag styles or sizes to achieve very high speeds. Today, however, flexibility is the primary driver. Machinery builders are being asked to provide machines that can produce multiple bag styles, sizes, film structures, and reclosable features without sacrificing speed.

8. Sustainability on the rise. With advances in sealing technology, packagers continue to experiment with thinner films, which have a direct impact on the equipment, particularly the sealing jaws. Reducing the sealant layer, a common strategy to dial back on one of the most expensive components of a film structure, will require a less forgiving seal temperature range. Switching from polyester to PP, as some companies are doing, requires a different sealing jaw design. Machine builders are now taking operational efficiencies into account when designing equipment, looking to reduce both energy and air consumption.

9. Improved sanitation. In food and beverage packaging in particular, a heightened focus on food safety has resulted in a demand for equipment that’s easier to keep clean, with fewer or no cracks, crevices, or areas for particles to be trapped. In the dairy industry, a common standard referenced in machine build specifications is AAA, which concentrates on cleanability, functionality, and durability.

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Best practices for specifying packaging equipmentDetermining requirements for packaging machinery isn’t rocket science, but it does take careful planning. During the 35 years I worked at Revlon, I learned to ask some basic questions on any new project to determine the appropriate direction to take. Here are the key areas you should address:

1. Outsourcing versus in-house. You don’t have to install a production line for every new product, particularly if the longevity of that product is far from clear. Ask whether someone else—a contract packager—can do this project better, or cheaper, than you, saving you the capital investment. Other considerations are whether the launch window is extremely tight, or whether this project makes the best use of existing plant space that might be better used for another project.

2. Flexibility of equipment for other applications. Don’t assume you’re developing requirements just for this particular package. Marketing may come knocking a year later with a request to go to a different package size, or a switch to a much thinner material. All of your assumptions in the beginning are no longer valid and suddenly, your equipment has limited capabilities. You’ll be faulted because you didn’t think about what’s coming next.

by david hoeniG

Hoenig worked for Revlon for 35 years, most recently as VP Manufacturing

and Engineering Synergy Worldwide.



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3. Don’t just replicate what you’ve done before. Doing so may be easier, more comfortable, and less risky, but you won’t be exposing yourself to new technologies and new vendors that may give your package and operation significant cost and time-to-shelf advantages.

4. Determining speed requirements. Devise two speed requirements: the speed required to produce enough product for the initial launch, as well as the speed required for ongoing production. Make sure the speed the equipment will run at day in and day out will be 15% to 20% lower than the maximum speed of the equipment to avoid extra wear and tear. Also, build in excess capacity (15% is a rule of thumb) for future growth. When evaluating vendor claims for machine speed, make sure it’s a speed that can be realistically achieved day to day. Start by asking the vendor to differentiate between the “design” maximum and the “production” maximum speeds. If necessary validate the claim with a customer site visit, or at the minimum, a phone call.

5. Put cost in proper perspective. When initially canvassing vendors, don’t eliminate a machine right away based on cost before you’ve done a true apples-to-apples comparison. One manufacturer’s price may include more options relative to the other manufacturers. Also, don’t automatically choose the lowest-cost machine, because you may pay an additional higher price later on in reliability.

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Best practices for specifying packaging equipment



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6. Don’t prematurely narrow your options. Typically CPG companies approach machinery builders with a specific package style in mind, stating the problem in the form of a solution, so to speak. However, this can handcuff the supplier and weed out potentially better options. In early-stage research, simply asking for recommendations can lead you to package styles you hadn’t considered. This is especially important when shopping for today’s f/f/s machinery, which is capable of doing more styles and package options than ever before.

7. Follow-up training. It’s common to train operators and mechanics when the equipment is installed. But it’s critical to schedule follow-up training, either to reinforce certain things after the equipment has been running for a time or to address issues that have cropped up. Be sure to specify this follow-up training as part of your requirements.

8. Spare parts strategy. Make sure to identify common wear parts and stock them in-house. Examine wear components for continuous improvement programs. For form/fill/seal equipment, that typically means sealing jaws, cutting/slitting tools, heating elements, and hot air guns.

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Five tips on finding the right f/f/s supplierHere are some tips to keep in mind when shopping for suppliers of form/fill/seal equipment:

1. Be transparent and consistent. Suppliers can only quote solutions based on what you’ve told them. If you’re not consistent with information you provide to suppliers, you’re not getting apples-to-apples comparisons. Try to avoid keeping small pieces of information from suppliers just because they seem inconsequential. Often, they can be quite the opposite.

2. Look for industry-specific experience. A company whose strength is in snack packaging may not be the wisest choice for a frozen entrée application. Manufacturers of f/f/s equipment often build areas of strategic expertise around certain industries and applications. Request customer references for applications in your industry.

3. Find out if they play well with others. When things go well, everyone slaps one another on the back. But when a project runs into a trouble, you don’t want suppliers pointing fingers at one another. Ask for a customer reference on a difficult install and what the supplier has done to make it right.

4. Investigate relationships with film vendors. Consider avoiding machinery vendors who only work with one or two material suppliers. A machine that is designed to run film from one or two suppliers may not be as robust as one designed to work with multiple

by david newcorn



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films from different vendors. Look for equipment vendors who have worked with films from multiple vendors.

5. Don’t make assumptions based on past history. Don’t automatically eliminate a supplier because of a supposedly poor reputation or a bad experience from long ago. Conversely, don’t skip customer reference checks from a supplier with a supposedly good reputation. Things change all the time, and companies that provided bad service years ago may provide good service today, and vice-versa.

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Five tips on finding the right f/f/s supplier

Tips for working with machinery builders

Once a machinery builder is selected, you’re looking at lead-time of several months while your machine is being built. Here are some tips to keep the project on track:

1. Deal with the right person. Find the person on the supplier side who has the proper technical knowledge and authority, rather than going through the supplier’s salesperson in the hopes that they can translate. Ideally the person you deal with will be the one responsible for the design of the equipment.

by david hoeniG



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2. Documentation control. Create one action document that lists who’s doing what, and the status of each item, rather than sending 75,000 e-mails. Have formal and scheduled design reviews where you review the document together and assess status. This can be accomplished over the phone; it doesn’t necessarily need to be face-to-face. Make the supplier take ownership of maintaining and updating this document throughout the project.

3. Don’t be a stranger. You’re likely spending a lot of money on a new bagging machine. Plan to check in with the machine builder with regularly scheduled visits during the course of the project. Even in the best-run machinery builder companies, regular customer visits compel action surrounding your project. If they know you’re coming in, they’re more likely to ensure that attention is paid internally to ensure they’re on track in preparation for your visit.

4. Test materials. Pay attention to the machine builder’s request for testing materials. Factor in the time required to have the rolls printed with a registration mark, slit to your desired width, and shipped to the equipment supplier. Avoid allowing a delay in providing materials as an excuse for a late FAT or machine delivery. And if you are not sure of your final film structure, the machine builder’s floor is not a bad place to test the options.

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What NOT to overlook on form/fill/seal equipment projectsHere are a few areas that sometimes don’t receive sufficient attention on form/fill/seal machinery projects:

1. Integration of the bagger with the scale.

The scale and the bagger are not always from the same vendor, and frequently are not from the same country. Two of the larger scale manufacturers are in Japan, and the majority of baggers are made in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Australia. These pieces of equipment are usually integrated together at the packager’s plant. Care must be taken to understand the “stack-up” or the total vertical elevation of the scale and bagger well in advance of installation.

Often, the scales are mounted to an overhead platform and the bagger sits on the floor. Typically the platform is designed and erected prior to the arrival of the scale and bagger on site. If the engineering is not done properly, machines don’t fit! If there is a metal detector place between the scale and the bagger, that adds another layer of complexity in the design.

For fragile products (snack foods, cookies, etc.), minimizing the drop from the feed system to the scale to the bagger to the discharge conveyor is the key to good design. Also, if the bag is going into a tray that will sit on the retail shelf, ensure proper orientation of the bag exiting the bagger and prior to tray loading, so that the bag faces the right way at retail.

by Shawn french, Technical Director, Dannon

French has worked in packaging for Hormel, Nabisco, and Kraft, as well as

for packaging suppliers.



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Regarding controls, the communication between the scale and the bagger is important. Does the scale tell the bagger is it ready with a charge, or does the bagger tell the scale it is ready to make a bag? There is also the downstream machine that needs to be ready for the bag to be sent.

Bottom line: Take time to really look at the entire system, interface points, product drops, bag orientation, operator access on platforms, space for cleaning, etc., because once it’s installed, it hard to change.

2. Controlling the amount of air in the package.

Air trapped in the bag can be a good thing (for product protection) and a nightmare on secondary packaging. It can make loading into a carton or tray very difficult and require additional components or features to allow the downstream equipment function properly. Sometimes packages are flushed with an inert gas to extend the shelf life of the product. This is very common in snack foods (for example, chips and nuts). Form/fill/seal vendors offer devices to remove some of the air with stationary guides or plows, as well as with “adjustable bag deflaters” which can be mounted to the horizontal sealing jaws. Changing their position can modify the amount of air in the bag.

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3. The design of the seal.

There are a multitude of seal designs and knife types. General types for back seals are are fin and lap seals. Different films require different seal jaw materials and designs. Bags can have gussets, flat bottoms, or four-corner side seals to improve presence on the shelf. Within the seal, there may be easy-open features that can be designed into the seal jaws. Extremely large seals may be a waste of material and provide an opportunity for optimization. The package designer and the equipment engineer should work together with the equipment vendor to determine the optimum seal design. Variables such as serration design (pitch, angle, depth), impressions per inch, total number of impressions, orientation of serrations (horizontal versus vertical versus diagonal), and knife type are decisions that need to be made. These are great areas to rely on the expertise of both the packaging material and packaging equipment supplier.

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Vendor evaluation methodology for form/fill/seal equipmentWhen evaluating form/fill/seal machinery suppliers, it’s important to follow a disciplined methodology to eliminate as much subjectivity as possible. What follows is an Intermediate Vendor Evaluation Analysis methodology that is well-suited to form/fill/seal equipment. Broadly, the process breaks down into four phases:

1. Canvass the field. Before you put together your Request for Quote (RFQ) document, take some time to broadly canvass the field of suppliers and looking at options, getting a rough idea of prices and capabilities. A simple checklist of requirements will suffice at this stage. You’re just looking for a rough guide—don’t hold them to it without furnishing a formal RFQ.

2. Write your requirements document and Request for Quote. Put together a detailed requirements document of what the project will require, and use that as the basis for the RFQ. It’s critical to have everyone on your cross-functional team to review the RFQ before it goes out to the vendor, to ensure that it addresses areas important to each team member.

3. Issue the RFQ. You’ll want to issue your RFQ to ideally three, but no more than six, packaging suppliers. With the responses you get back, rate them using the Intermediate Vendor Evaluation Analysis spreadsheet tool (see download link, left).

by Paul ZePf,P.Eng., M.Eng., CPP

With nearly 40 years of packaging production experience, Zepf has written 14 books on packaging production technology and is a

co-founder of Zarpac Inc., an engineering, software, and

consulting firm.



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4. Conduct the Vendor Evaluation Analysis. When you get quotes back from vendors, rate their responses and plug them into the Intermediate Vendor Evaluation Analysis spreadsheet. Make sure your entire cross-functional team’s input goes into the scoring procedure! This can be achieved either by everyone sitting around a table and achieving a group consensus score by score, or it can be each team member scoring the vendor quotes separately, and then comparing results—whichever works best for your team. This team scoring approach is especially critical if the machine or technology is a first-time buy.

The Intermediate Vendor Evaluation Analysis is designed for critical machines on the line, including a form/fill/seal machine. This spreadsheet tool separates the assessment of the machine builder from the machine. The tool rates each vendor across seven key areas, including prior experience, manufacturing capability, engineering and project management, company management, support, delivery, and references.

Use the bottom tab to select a second worksheet that allows the rating of the actual machine itself across nine key areas, including technical risk assessment, throughput, reliability and maintenance, changeover, machine design, ergonomics, operator interface, safety, and cost.

To mitigate against the tendency of giving a middle-of-the-road “5” score to ambiguous criteria, restrict your scores to a 1, 3, 6 or a 9 (on a hypothetical scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is best). This will force out a differentiation. If you don’t have prior experience with the vendor, it helps to speak to the vendor’s other customers who have similar products, and use that as the basis for your scores.

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Vendor evaluation methodology for form/fill/seal equipment

Intermediate Vendor Evaluation Analysis

DOWNLOAD SPREADSHEET»

http://bit.ly/intermediatevea



http://bit.ly/intermediatevea

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The spreadsheet provides a total weighted score for each vendor and machine. While the spreadsheet can’t pick a vendor or machine for you, it can be a system for helping to make sense of and evaluate the mass of information you’re receiving from vendors.

Some tips on filling out the spreadsheet:

1. Maintenance and spare parts. To judge the number of high-maintenance parts, ask the supplier about the spare parts kit they provide as standard, including wear components. Look for fewer wear components and fewer overall components, as well as whether they are minor versus major machine components. Check how easy it is to swing away the seal jaws without tools to gain access to the sealing area for easy cleaning. Look for standardized components that can be purchased either locally or from multiple sources.

2. Complexity of design. To assess the complexity of the machine design, look at how many parts or components a sub-assembly has to accomplish a given task. If one machine has two parts and another has 10 to accomplish the same function, the one with the smallest number of parts in general has the most efficient design. But make sure to take flexibility into account. If the machine with 10 parts allows far more bag sizes and styles, that’s to your advantage.

3. Weight cost accordingly. In North America, CPG companies tend to focus overly on cost, not on value. The spreadsheet gives a default weight of only 10% to cost, but like any number in the spreadsheet, you can modify it as you see fit. At your company that number may be higher, but a best practice is not to exceed 20%. Cost shouldn’t be the overriding determinant of whether you buy a given machine—functionality should.

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Staffing a machinery project for successBy now it’s widely accepted that for maximum success on any packaging project, it’s best to create a cross-functional team as early as possible in a project.

However, there is often an age and gender gap between the equipment side, which tends to consist of older men, often in their late 40s through 60s—and the package development and design sides—often staffed by women and younger people.

Often the younger team members are intimidated by the older engineers, especially if those engineers react negatively to ideas or discussion points brought up in meetings. Discussion between the material and machinery people can also grind to a halt because they don’t speak the same “language.”

This can create a dynamic that can hinder or even jeopardize the project if you don’t take steps to address it. For example, there might be minor changes in thicknesses or materials that would help the machine perform much better. If the two sides are not working together, that could be something you find out three, six, or even 12 months after the machine is installed and you’ve been struggling.

With engineers, a lot of their professional respect for other team members is based on shared work experience with those individuals. With someone a year or two out of school, that

by Shawn french,Technical Director, Dannon



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respect is not there yet. To move past this natural impediment, require conversations and participation on the part of the younger people and tell them not to be intimidated by the older engineers. The worst thing that can happen is for the packaging materials person to be at a meeting or factory acceptance test and not say anything. You have to force them to communicate. Ask them what issues or opportunities they see and what improvements can be made.

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Staffing a machinery project for success

Who leads the team?by david hoeniG

It may seem logical for someone from the machinery engineering organization to lead a form/fill/seal machinery project, but sometimes when this happens, gaps can occur in areas outside of the immediate scope of the engineering department. Instead, consider assigning a true project manager, tasked with covering all the bases.

Another approach is to put the production supervisor in a project leadership role, if possible. That’s because engineers tend to give short shrift to production-oriented aspects like runnability and reliability. The equipment that’s ultimately selected should become the production department’s baby, rather than the engineering department’s baby.



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Roadmap for a successful form/fill/seal factory acceptance testHere are some tips for a successful factory acceptance test (FAT) for form/fill/seal equipment:

1. Furnish a factory acceptance test plan. The FAT is the time to discover failures or issues, determine reliability, verify efficiencies and explore how the machine should handle failures. This plan actually should be prepared up front and submitted to the supplier as part of the Request for Quote (RFQ). Although you’ll pay for the test, most equipment suppliers will agree to a provision that if the machine fails, any subsequent test is free. Your test plan should specify how long the machine should be dry-cycled (24 hours recommended), and how many packages should be produced and at what speed—in other words, the length of time (two-minute stress runs, no more than five minutes for quality production runs, etc.). It should also specify disposal plans for the finished packages.

2. Know the difference between a factory and site acceptance test. One of the biggest areas of confusion surrounding the FAT is over whether it should simulate how the machine responds under actual factory conditions. That’s actually the purpose of the site acceptance test. In the machinery builder’s plant, it may be difficult or even impossible to simulate both the production volume and the conditions of your product, especially for more than a few minutes. This is especially true if the product will be packed at a certain temperature, or has a certain consistency or rate of speed coming out of an oven, fryer or freezer. Much time, energy, and money have been spent in vain trying to address “failures” in




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the machine builder’s plant, only to find that the machine works perfectly once in production at the customer’s plant. The purpose of the factory acceptance test is to verify the desired functionality of the machine. The purpose of the site acceptance test is to affirm that the machine runs your product to your specifications in its operating environment. Knowing the difference can save you and the supplier time, money, and aggravation.

3. Ensure you’re using the correct film. Use the film that will be used during actual production.

4. Make sure you train the right people. If training is provided as part of the factory acceptance test, make sure the people being trained are the production people who will run the line, not the engineers.

5. Follow a detailed “failure” script. Make an inventory of the type of failures that you’ve experienced or might experience, as well as expected outcomes. For form/fill/seal equipment, this checklist could include:

• Hit the e-stop, then re-start it. Ensure the machine doesn’t jam itself on start-up, and that there are few or no wasted bags.

• Trigger or block each sensor to see how the machine responds and re-starts.

• Starve the machine of product to see if it stops producing bags.

• Break the film web to see how the machine responds.

• Disable the knives to prevent them from cutting; see if the machine detects bags being made without being cut.

• Block the date/lot code from being applied (if applicable). Does the machine detect the bag with the missing code?

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• Induce a failure in the auto splicer (if there is one) by cutting the film web halfway through. Does the machine gracefully shut down?

• Run the machine at very low and very high speeds; are there critical differences in the way it forms, fills and seals a bag?

Also examine the physical characteristics:

• Did it fill the correct amount?

• Does the filled product look presentable (if it’s a clear bag)?

• Is it a clean seal?

• Is it a clean cut?

• Is there any crushing?

• Are there any leakers?

6. Test part replacement. Test how long it takes to replace the most common wear parts. Determine how to remove a defective part.

7. Assess safety. Complete a review of the equipment from a safety perspective. Look for poorly guarded areas and pinch points. Run your hands across the machine (carefully) looking for sharp edges and burrs. Is making the machine LOTO (Lock-out / Tag-out) easy to accomplish or are there unexpected sources of energy that could cause injury? (Lock-out/Tag-out refers to the act of disabling all sources of energy such as electricity and compressed air while physically locking down the machine so that it doesn’t cause injury due to movement while the machine is being worked on.)

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Determining when to rebuild or replace a form/fill/seal machineHere are some warning signs that may indicate it’s time to either rebuild or recondition your form/fill/seal machine:

1. Speed and efficiency reductions. If a technician has to babysit the machine in addition to or instead of the operator, it’s a definite warning sign. If a form/fill/seal machine’s uptime availability drops much below 97%, it’s a sign. That may sound high, but it’s not—considering that each machine on the line must operate at a monthly availability of at least 97% to get an entire packaging line OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) to be above 85%. Gathering data to document these reductions is often the only way to justify a return on investment on something new.

2. Quality decreases. When you find the machine can no longer consistently make a good bag, its time may have come.

3. Changeover time increases. Usually this means it takes more tinkering to get it right. The cost associated with this type of downtime can really add up.




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4. Maintenance increases. Some companies use specialized maintenance software like MP2 to not only help keep maintenance running smoothly and avoid surprises, but to track equipment maintenance trends to provide the big picture.

5. Component obsolescence. Parts are no longer available from or supported by the machinery manufacturer or third-party suppliers, including old PLCs, proprietary controllers, or even outdated servo gear. When it becomes more expensive and takes longer to source critical parts, it may be time to look for a new machine.

6. Requirements change. Marketing may want a new bag format, size, film thickness, or zipper or fitment. Replacing may be a better option than modifying the bagger to do what it wasn’t designed to do.

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Determining when to rebuild or replace a form/fill/seal machine



http://www.infor.com/product_summary/eam/mp2

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Tips for a successful flexible packaging line start-upHere are some tips for a successful line installation and start-up:

1. Don’t wait until the last minute to involve operators and production people. Often it’s the engineers and the purchasing people who seem to know everything about the project, yet it’s the production people who have to live with the equipment. Get the production manager, operators, and maintenance people involved near the beginning of the project. They don’t need to be at every meeting, but they should be at the critical ones. They should be very familiar with the equipment once it reaches your floor.

2. Pay the supplier to install it. Engineers often think they can save the company money by installing the equipment themselves, but having the supplier install its own equipment or at the least oversee installation in what it considers to be the correct way can save you money down the road.

3. Staff the start-up with your best production people. Don’t choose a mediocre operator. Staff it with your sharpest operators who can teach other operators. While the oldest staff members will have the most experience, younger personnel sometimes are more open to newer technologies and may learn more readily from the supplier how to properly run and change over the equipment. This is especially critical if the machine is brand new technology for the plant, or is considered critical equipment for the company.

by david newcorn



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4. Find the line’s correct “rhythm.” Actual production conditions of infeed systems can cause inadvertent starting and stopping of vertical bagging equipment, which is a sign the machine is running too fast for the rate of product being produced, even though it may have been engineered for that speed. This can result in increased failures and rejects. Be willing to dial back on the speed; each line has its own rhythm, which may differ slightly from the designed speed. A slower speed may result in more cases out the door at the end of the day, thanks to fewer rejects and less downtime.

5. Minimize the supplier technician’s actual contact with your f/f/s machine. Normally during an install everyone stays away from machine-builder technicians while they perform their work. This is a mistake. Rather than working with the equipment directly, have the supplier technician try to show your staff how to make the adjustments themselves. Your team will learn by doing. When that technician walks out the door for good, you don’t want the operator or mechanic having never solved problems or made adjustments during actual production conditions.

7. Document what you learn from the supplier technician. Depending on the complexity of the equipment, it may be worth it to keep the supplier technician in your factory an extra few days. During that time, follow that technician and learn everything you can to fill in any knowledge gaps among operators. Shadow the technician with a camcorder, snap plenty of photos with a digital camera, and write down what you’ve learned.

8. Document last-minute changes to line layouts. Often during installation, adjustments are made to how equipment is positioned on the actual floor, deviating from the line layout drawings prepared at the beginning of the project. Take the time to go back and

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modify these drawings so that the line layout drawings reflect the actual packaging line as built. Down the road, you’ll avoid lost time caused by a mismatch between what the drawing says and the reality on your floor.

9. Finish your punch list. During the factory acceptance test or startup, it’s common to compile a punch list of minor adjustments and then never follow it up once product is being successfully produced. Unfortunately, this can lead to problems down the road that impact product quality, such as a guiderail causing an inadvertent scuff on a pouch. Operators are less likely to bring these problems to anyone’s attention “because it’s always been done this way.” The punch list should be reviewed and approved by engineering, production, and management, with ownership transferred from engineering to production in a formal sign-off procedure.

10. Spare parts. Things do fail during start-up. Don’t forget to request a spare-parts list and order the critical spares so they are delivered prior to the equipment arriving at your factory.

11. Performance criteria. Linking a vendor payment to the equipment’s performance at start-up can be a strong incentive for the vendor. As part of a Site Acceptance Test, consider an extended testing period, covering enough shifts (or even weeks) to really understand the machine’s abilities and limitations. Be fair to the supplier, though, when demanding so much—don’t delay tests, or introduce a product change or variation, without consideration of the supplier’s time.

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Financial justifications for new form/fill/seal equipmentFinancial justifications for new form/fill/seal equipment come in two varieties—hard and soft. Focus on the hard justifications, which will require you to provide data to demonstrate a return on investment. Then back it up with additional “soft” justifications for which you don’t have data but which support clear benefits.

For example, you may be able to provide three hard justifications that will generate more than $590,000 in savings over a three-year period. Then you may be able to pick out seven other soft justifications for which you can’t produce data. You should be able to justify new packaging equipment on the hard justifications alone, but the soft justifications help bolster your case.

You should never try to justify a project solely on soft justifications—at most companies, there are too many accountants who will require hard justifications. Also, in some circumstances, it will be impractical to get data off the line to support a given justification—for example, it makes no sense to spend $300,000 to get the data to support the investment in a $300,000 form/fill/seal machine.

Be sure to include cost avoidance, not just cost savings, in your justifications.




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Six hard justifications

Remember, you’ll need to furnish actual data to support these before you use them. Several of these can backfire if your assumptions are incorrect, so use them with caution!

1. Reduction/elimination of excessive maintenance costs. This one’s tricky, because even if you track the cost of breakdowns, repairs, and maintenance to keep an older f/f/s machine going, the math often doesn’t justify a replacement machine.

2. More sales due to more uptime. You can only realistically use this justification if you’re selling 100% of what you make, you’re maxed out in shifts, and if it’s indisputable that any marginal additional amount you can produce also will be sold.

3. Reduced work periods, shifts, and overtime. This is also tricky due to the nuances in separating fixed costs that you incur anyway (overhead, lighting, rent, etc.) from variable costs (hourly workers staffing the line). Also, by eliminating downtime you may not actually reap as much savings as you thought because you aren’t necessarily going to send people home and save that money.

4. Full depreciation at the end of its useful life. At the end of the depreciation period, the justification is that you need a new machine to remain competitive. Some engineers have found more success with this justification versus relying on justifications related to downtime or maintenance costs.

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5. Material savings. If you switch to a machine that will enable the running of a different or thinner material, the material savings can partially justify the investment in new equipment.

6. Less rework. This has associated costs in labor, space, scrap, and material disposal and the time lost to produce product that needs rework versus producing good product the first time.

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Financial justifications for new form/fill/seal equipment

Fitting financial justification into overall company strategyby david hoeniG

Though hard justifications are preferred when making the business case to invest in form/fill/seal equipment, they’re often not very easy to find.

Instead, focus on creating a holistic business case, addressing how the equipment fits into the business strategy, inventory turns, obsolescence, and first-to-market capabilities.

Your presentation needs to drive home the idea that this project is the cost of being nimble and being able to respond to changes in the market. Conversely, you’ll want to indicate the cost of not investing.



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Six common pitfalls to avoid on bagging machinery projectsForm/fill/seal machinery projects fail for a number of reasons. Here are six caveats to watch out for:

1. Unrealistic expectations on both sides. Sometimes project engineers at CPG companies set an unrealistically high threshold level of performance, either to help justify the project internally, or to pad the number under the assumption that the machinery builder will fall “short” but will still meet the actually desired speed. For its part, the machinery builder may feel pressure to commit to a performance requirement while suspecting or even knowing it’s an unreasonable goal. First, the contract will be awarded, and second, once the project starts, it’s too expensive for the CPG customer to back out. The games we play! Both sides are now set up for failure and disappointment. Better to have a frank discussion over the real performance requirements and align expectations before the project starts.

2. Poor vendor/application fit. Most machinery building companies are founded or run by engineers, and most engineers have never met a problem they didn’t think they can solve. When it comes to form/fill/seal machinery, most machine builders have built up an expertise and core competency in certain types of applications. Machine builders who stretch too far by taking an application that’s too far afield from their competence area, or who are simply too overloaded, may end up disappointing their CPG customer.

by david newcorn



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3. Poor or incomplete project scope. Finding out halfway through a bagging machinery project that the machine needs to make a gusseted stand-up pouch, or that a zipper reclosure or fitment needs to be applied, is a sign that insufficient thought was put into the requirements up front. This leads to delay, increased costs, and disappointment.

4. Not adjusting the schedule for changes. Changes do happen, but projects get into hot water when CPG company expects machinery vendors to accommodate changes without impacting the delivery schedule. Machinery builders, eager to please, often do a poor job of policing these requests. Often the relationship can become dysfunctional—an eight-week machinery project that’s already slipping into nine weeks may use a change request to internally “justify” that delay. (“We’re going to be a week late anyway, so sure, we’ll take on that request.”) In reality, such a change may turn it into a 12-week project, much to everyone’s surprise.

5. Insufficient expertise among buying team members. The cross-functional buying team is a common approach to selecting packaging equipment. But just because certain members of that team may have a strong opinion about which machine to buy doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an informed opinion. For example, while someone from a non-technical field such as finance or marketing may be able to provide a different perspective to the team, they may not have the technical expertise to know if a particular machine or supplier can deliver a solid solution beyond a sales pitch. To make the best team buying decision, it may be worthwhile to invest in consensus training. The result: individual members may not agree all the time, but the group will operate more efficiently as a unit, versus being held hostage by individual members who lack the proper expertise to make a sole decision.

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6. Missed launch windows due to different interpretations of lead-time. It’s not unusual for the customer and the machinery builder to make completely different assumptions about what “lead-time” really means. If a machine builder is quoting a 20-week lead-time for a new machine, it may define “lead-time” as the time from when the order is placed to when that machine is ready for a factory acceptance test (FAT). That could turn into trouble if the customer’s expectation is that “lead-time” extends to when the machine is up and running on the plant floor. Not accounted for is the FAT itself, subsequent training, potential further modifications, shipping, installation, and start-up. To avoid scheduling problems, make sure everyone agrees what “lead-time” really means.

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Six common pitfalls to avoid on bagging machinery projects



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Multiple benefits: Stellar printing, side gussets, and a PET bag give Nestlé Purina Pet Care Fancy Feast Gourmet Gold cat food a more upscale presentation.

Stand-up and steamy: Lakeside Foods offers an alternative to steamable pillow packs with its microwavable, self-venting flexible pouch for frozen vegetables.



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Enhanced shelf life: An advanced tray and film combination for asparagus, with a multilayer polyolefin film structure, lets oxygen in and carbon dioxide out at controlled rates and maintains carbon dioxide levels of 5% to 10% in the package, delaying decay and softening of the asparagus spears.

Squeeze and slurp: A squeezable pouch from Dole Packaged Goods Canada encourages kids to have fun with their fruit snack. The Squish’ems pouch uses a proprietary, multilayer film laminate.



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New York landmarks: The flexible film on Duane Reade’s packages of household paper products provides the canvas for UPC-style illustrations of New York City landmarks.

Self-venting pouch: Phillips Foods Inc. enhanced shelf presence and consumer convenience for its premium seafood products with a microwavable, self-venting pouch. It is made of multiple layers of polyester laminated to heat-resistant polypropylene.



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Spicy-hot graphics: A polyethylene bag, reverse flexo-printed in five colors, turns up the graphic heat for Kettle chips, centered around bright orange flame graphics to help ignite sales.

Dual pack: A two-part, thermoformed rollstock package holds meat in one section and marinade in the other, creating a Marinade-on-Demand package for on-site or at-home marinating.



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Compostable bag: Jordan UK’s organic cereal varieties are packed in bags that combine earth-friendly films, inks, and adhesives. The bag meets Europe’s Din Certco accreditation requirements for full compostability.

Shelf presence: Verde Valle’s Branli brand stand-up pouch, for its CrujiNola crunchy granola and raisins, bursts with value-adds. These include a reclosable zipper and a matte polyester, vacuum-metalized BoPP, low-density polyethylene construction with reverse flexo printing.



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Cleaning convenience: Drop’n Go concentrated tablets for convenient use with steam cleaners come in a pouch, where they reside in individual foil pillow packs. The tablets eliminate the steps of measuring and pouring from heavy jugs.

In clear view: Kraft Foods selected clear, pressure-sensitive labels with simple graphics to decorate PET bottles of salad dressing, enabling consumers to view the product inside the clear bottles.



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Value-added pouch: Flexible pouches paired with the right closure are increasing their value first in cheese and now in deli meats. Land O’Frost includes new zipper technology on its 1-lb. packs, reducing meat spoilage.

Premixed margaritas: Flexible packaging enables consumers to enjoy Black Iguana prepared products, such as premixed margaritas, while avoiding the preparation step of putting ingredients in a blender.



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Date post:	09-Feb-2022
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Flexible Packaging Playbook - mediadroit

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