cp 07 conference - drills down on industry's hot trends

Sold-out event focuses on convergence in packaging and logistics, operational excellence, and insights from Procter & Gamble, Alcoa, Coca-Cola, and Alberto-Culver.

Pw 7704 Cp07 Final

By any measure, the CP 07: Success With Contract Packaging conference Sept. 10-12 at the Chicago O’Hare Marriott was an unqualified success. With nearly 170 attendees on hand, the conference, produced by Contract Packaging and Packaging World magazines and supported by the Contract Packaging Association, was a sell-out. Attendees gave the conference high marks, and were excited about the prospects for next year’s event.

Benjamin Gordon, managing director, BG Strategic Advisors, emphasized in his opening keynote address that contract packaging has entered a phase of “winner-take-all. A handful of firms at the top will take the lion’s share of the marketplace,” he said.

The reason, Gordon explained, is that the co-packing industry is being squeezed at the beginning of an era in which previously well-defined lines among the companies operating in contract packaging and ancillary services are becoming blurred. Contract packagers who were engaged in either primary, secondary, or display packaging services now are starting to offer two or all three of these services, Gordon noted.

The industry also is beginning to see the same set of convergence characteristics in contract logistics, Gordon added. Companies are now offering services in two or more areas: warehousing, surface transportation, and freight forwarding.

Expanded services within contract packaging and contract logistics are making each major area an attractive target for mergers that are blending packaging and logistics. Gordon cited the mergers of Wilpak (contract packaging) and Jacobson Companies (logistics) and Power Packaging (contract packaging) and Exel (logistics) as recent examples.
But gaining a competitive advantage doesn’t only occur through mergers and acquisitions. In another session, Avi Edelstein, partner at Tefen Management Consulting, explained that operational excellence is also critical for success in the new world of contract packaging. Edelstein outlined six capabilities that will be hallmarks of effective operations among the best companies: unit-cost comparisons, lean manufacturing practices, overall equipment effectiveness, flexibility in reacting to market changes, reliable operations, and Six Sigma processes on the plant floor and in the executive suite.

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