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New workflow technologies that add muscle to CP

Emerging software can help co-packers drive inefficiencies from manufacturing lines and cut packaging design time. Those savings are passed to customers.

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The glut of products coming onto the market today is increasing competition for consumers’ pocketbooks. In turn, manufacturers, logistics service providers, and retailers are being challenged to improve their marketing and supply chain processes.

These developments are increasing demand for contract-packaging services and pressuring the companies that provide such services to operate more efficiently than ever. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and retailers are demanding that co-packers minimize and control costs and also meet shorter product lead times.

New technologies are coming on the market to help co-packers control costs, monitor production flow, prepare competitive quotes quickly, and perform other essential tasks that help them get to market faster. The software improves CPG companies’ and retailers’ visibility into their projects from a distance and also helps them monitor cost reductions for long-term projects.

There are many software programs on the market that may assist in co-packers’ operations, but following are two new ones that might meet their needs.

• Packaging performance management software, from Nulogy Corp. Toronto, Canada. The company’s commercial production management system is designed specifically for packaging. It can help users reduce product costs, increase customer service levels, and provide support for RFID, calendar-view project scheduling, quote optimization, and Web-based reporting and business intelligence.

• Three-dimensional packaging design and workflow management software, from EskoArtwork, Vandalia, OH. Contract packagers can use the software to digitally design packages. Graphics designers use the same software to lay out images on the digital packages. Working in the same system cuts design time and eliminates the need for several physical package prototypes.

Performance management

 Developing quotes and tracking costs can get tricky in the typical made-to-order co-packing environment where line setup and manufacturing quantity changes with each project. Standard manufacturing plants run one item on one production line day after day, simplifying labor staffing decisions on the line and pinpointing areas where efficiency could be improved. A contract packager, how-ever, runs one project one day, another the next. To isolate best operating practices, the best hope is to compare similar jobs over time.

“A variety of things affect your net production at the end of day,” says Chris Nutley, president of MSW Packaging, a contract packager in Lawrenceburg, IN. “The difficulty is in finding where hidden costs lie and how they affect production numbers and then react to them.”

MSW is tackling these and other challenges by turning to Nulogy’s packaging performance management software, called PackManager. The system provides quote-to-ship management, project costing, a Web-based RFP/quoting workflow, capacity planning, bill of materials verification, automated project scheduling, real-time operational bench marks and production status information, and single-click billing for multicustomer relationships.

The system consists of office, floor, and database modules that integrate with a packaging company’s existing information technology, says Kevin Wong, Nulogy vice president of operations.

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