Before doing business with Ulticom, Siemens requested that the middleware provider complete a Statement of Compliance document in order to confirm that their packaging met EU requirements. According to Ulticom senior quality assurance engineer Joe Archutowski, the existing circuit-board packaging comprised a combination of clamshells, corrugated trays, and corrugated shippers. “The main noncompliance was in the amount of wasted paperboard used in the tray design and in our shipping box,” he says. The package’s polyvinyl chloride clamshells were prohibited under the European directives, as well.
In spring 2008, Ulticom began working with package testing firm DDL, Inc. and Life Packaging Technology LLC, a packaging consultation and design company, to engineer a more efficient package capable meeting the EU directives. From the outset, the team of DDL and LPT engineers understood that in order to create more sustainable packaging, it would be necessary to completely understand the performance characteristics of the product itself, without the benefit of protective packaging.
