To do so, they must focus on technical innovation, remain flexible, rein in manufacturing costs, and integrate internal and external functions that too often are excessively departmentalized.
That was the message delivered September 22 by Panos Kinigakis, a Kraft Foods Fellow from the Glenview, IL-based company, during the Fall Executive Conference held by the Flexible Packaging Association in Chicago.
Efforts to reduce manufacturing costs, Kinigakis told his audience, can get a big boost if people understand machine/material interactions. “At Kraft we encourage the development of people who understand both the machine and the material,” said Kinigakis. “We also try to avoid endless development cycles. Eventually, you have to stop and execute.”
Kinigakis believes CPG companies who want to succeed in a world of global competition need to foster mutually beneficial partnerships that stretch back through the supply chain not only to the packaging machinery builder or film converter, but even as far back as the resin and additive producers. “Working together as a group, we must facilitate the transformation of the invention to innovation,” he told his audience. “If an idea stays stuck in the lab, it does none of us any good.”
