Finding Methods for Innovative Packaging Development: The Card Approach

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Summary, in English

Innovation strategies are crucial for corporate success and should be a top priority for packaging companies. However, to improve the innovativeness of packaging manufacturers, there is a need to increase the integration of product and packaging development and collaboration within the supply chain. New methods for innovative packaging development are needed.

Packaging plays a valuable role in the marketing and distribution of products, and can thus add great value for actors in the supply chain as well as for consumers. However, packaging’s great potential to add value seems to be overlooked and neglected, which appears to be the result of too little knowledge. Collaboration between supply chain actors is limited and packaging development does generally not start until the product is almost finished and ready for production, which restricts the packaging innovation potential. If the product and the package can instead be developed in a more integrated manner, this would improve the competitiveness of the total product-packaging-complex.

Packaging development is a complex process with many different parameters that must be addressed, such as product requirements, distribution of products, the retailer, the consumer and sustainability. A holistic and systematic approach is thus of great importance. To enable this process, researchers have called for a facilitating and holistic method for packaging development, contemplating the known and potential benefits of integrated product and packaging development and supply chain collaboration.

This report presents the results of a case study that evaluates a carton packaging company’s new method for innovative packaging development. This method, The Card Approach, should be applied at the very beginning of the packaging development process and is an interactive way of performing a packaging requirement analysis in collaboration with the packaging company’s customer.

The report concludes that many benefits can be gained from implementing the Card Approach. This new approach will result in a very thorough packaging requirement analysis, which in turn will increase the potential to develop optimised packaging. By using it as a standard approach at the company, the packaging development and hence the actual offering will be improved and more effective, and internal collaboration and communication will increase. Application of the Card Approach should enhance the potential of innovative packaging solutions because, among other things, it should increase the integration of product and packaging development, and supply chain collaboration.

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