“Can my product packaging withstand the vibration and impacts seen in the transportation environment?” is a question that is often overlooked or addressed much too late in the product development process. Also often overlooked is how your new product will be staged in a warehouse.
Damage prevention is essential on a number of fronts, namely cost control, sustainability, and customer satisfaction. When damage occurs, it not only doubles the carbon output in product packaging materials and transportation, but also disappoints your customer and increases your costs. How can you avoid damages? Involve your third-party logistics (3PL) services provider in pre-testing your packaging design.
Pre-shipment testing is the best way to measure if a product package can travel through a given supply chain safely and arrive in good condition. It is also critical in determining the most efficient product package. Optimizing the product-to-package ratio will help reduce cost, but packaging must be tested to ensure that the product can get to the end customer undamaged.
Pre-shipment testing is also a way to reduce your company’s carbon output. Removing carbon wasters, such as damages, unused box space, and bad material selection from packages, can cumulatively add up to significant changes to your supply chain’s carbon output.
UPS engineers have endorsed the International Safe Transit Association (ISTA) 3A standard simulation test for small parcel shipping. This simulation uses actual data recorded in the small package shipping environment, which is the same environment used for consumer electronics.
Today, there are hundreds of package labs all over the world. Your 3PL may have its own package lab, or at least easy access to one to assist you in testing. Access ISTA’s database of lab locations for a package lab near you.
Usually for a nominal fee compared to the cost of lost inventory, package labs provide invaluable information about the strengths and weaknesses of your packaging throughout the supply chain.
The goal is to apply the science of package design and testing BEFORE the product hits the market. This upstream approach to package design contributes directly to successful product launches, including improved customer satisfaction, maintained brand image, profitability, and reduced carbon output.
Intresting article, which covers some of the unknown facts on packaging to me. Delivering package to a destination with out damage sometimes hurdle. Some packages and very delicate ISTA procedures gives clear idea how the package should be in proper packing and how much weight it will with stand and etc.
I fully agree with the importance of properly packing conception and design; then testing and lab as previuos phases are critical. On top issues on shipment, one of the biggest difficulties faced in a recent professional past was to reproduce the enviroment condition (environment parameters) to trust in order to prevent damages during transportation, even pack (with switching cards inside) wasn't impacted by any crash.
Carla, you said is right. Many times packing and transporting the product to destination safely is a challenge. Many of the ship and air cargo movements involved the mishandling of the container either by human intervention or mechanically (crane and other equipments) can cause damage to the content. More over we cannot expect such considerations from machines and natural involvements (calamities, air pocket, rough sea etc). Here is the role of packing engineering comes. It is a branch of engineering, which are professionally dealing with the design and packing mechanism. Such professional are able to assess the stress and vibration, the package can withstand. More over they can make sure about the saftey of the container and if needed with ecco friendly materials (green and reusable).
Carla, great article!I may be a bit biased toward your article, as my company CAPE is the leader in packaging and cube optimization software tools (shameless plug).There are a lot of variables involved in proper packaging, from product packaging (orientation, dimensions, placement, etc.) to corrugated packaging (humidity, compression and strength, flute sizes, etc.) and a host of others, including sustainability and sustainable material use and reuse.
Thanks for covering a very important topic (and often underrated topic) within the supply chain.
Back when "green" was just a nice idea, a distributor I worked with tried using popped popcorn--the food--rather than styrofoam peanuts. Now you can create an air bubble around your product within the packaging or mold styrofoam around the device. Both are very cool, but I guess I prefer the bubble becuase styrofoam is still a pain to get rid of.
The shipping part of bringing a product to market definitely has the potential to put an item through an accelerated lifetime type of trial--especially around holiday season (just remember writing "Fragile" on the box is a bad idea)! Very sensible and proactive to bring the carrier into the planning process. The knowledge base of an organization like UPS adds a lot of value to investments in distribution logistics. Like in the egg-protector contests in school, where the goal was to have a package that would allow your egg to be dropped from a greater height than anybody else's, it's easy to resign yourself to overkill and go through many more reams of bubble wrap than necessary.
As you can imagine tests depend on kind of products. Basically I can report for products similar to blackplain boards for switching with shipment's need through oceans, labs done were related to temperature/humidity and crash tests of the package, for the fact navy shipment is extremly sensitive to those factors.
This is something new which I have never heard of. Interestingly this gives insights into how packaging can really sustain transportation environment. I am just curious about how accurate the simulation data is.
EBN Dialogue enables and encourages you to participate in live chats with notable leaders and luminaries. Not only editors and journalists, but the entire EBN community is able to comment and ask questions. Listed below are upcoming and archived chats.
Archived Dialogues
Thailand Stages a Comeback Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Euro-Crisis: What It Means for High-Tech Firms Join EBN Editor in Chief Bolaji Ojo and Contributing Editor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday, July 12, at 10:00 a.m. EDT for a Live Chat on high-tech and Europe's economic difficulties.
Microsoft Surface: Potential Winners & Losers What are the implications for the electronics industry supply chain of Microsoft Corp.'s decision to launch its own tablet PC? Join industry veteran and EE Times' systems and OEM expert Rick Merritt on Tuesday, July 3, at 12:00 pm EDT for a Live Chat on this subject.
Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Peter Drucker famously said "Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window." Yet in the razor's-edge world of electronics—with a lean supply chain and just-in-time demands—the need to know the future is vital.
While no one really can accurately predict the future, we can take guidance from another Drucker saying which is the best way to predict the future is to create it.
You've heard the saying "the No. 1 supply chain risk is your people." That hasn't always been the case. But today's complex global supply chain requires a new type of multitalented employee. It's one who understands, finance, marketing, economics, is savvy with technology, graceful with relationships and can think analytically.
Where are these people? Are universities properly preparing the next generation supply chain professionals? How do train your existing workforce for these new, demanding positions?
Brian Fuller, editor-in-chief of EBN, will lead a 60-minute Avnet Velocity panel discussion that will ask and answer these and other questions swirling around today's supply-chain talent challenges.
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