1. In light of your experience, what are the trends and challenges you’ve witnessed happening with respect to the Manufacturing Packaging space?
One of the first trends that present a manufacturing challenge is customization. More and more brands and customers are chasing custom packaging. It could be custom primary packaging to stand out on the shelf, custom case configurations including display-ready packaging, or even just custom printing on cases with varying information. This inherently drives complexity in our manufacturing process that we need to solve for.
The second trend, which is somewhat related to the first, is the growth of regionality and seasonality driving packaging. Trying to stay relevant to local consumers as well as the season are driving significant challenges across the entire supply chain, including manufacturing.
The third trend you are seeing is around sustainability. It seems like every month, a different company or brand is taking a public position on packaging sustainability, which is excellent, but driving a trend that does impact manufacturing. As consumers gain an even better understanding of sustainability and large brands take more responsibility, significant shifts in packaging around recyclable materials, recycled content, renewable, light-weighting, etc. will occur. Each of these areas holds their challenges from a supply chain standpoint (including manufacturing) as well as a performance standpoint (both during use and end of life). The key is finding a solution that truly has a sustainable benefit and maintains its functional purpose and cost structure.
2. What are some of the points of discussion that go on in your leadership panel? What are the strategic points that you go by to steer the company forward?
While I can’t get into specifics on the key metrics we use, I can tell you that there are several best practices that all companies I’ve been involved with use.
It’s always a good idea to start with the end in mind and set very clear, very on point key metrics.