Packaging’s moment in the spotlight

By Bob Trebilcock · April 14, 2021

Yesterday, Day 2 of ProMatDX, I focused on robotics. Today, let’s take a look at packaging.

A few years ago, I did a story on a new distribution facility put up by MSC Industrial, a distributor of repair parts, components and supplies. The highlight of the facility was a highly-efficient goods-to-person picking engine that could rapidly fill orders. This was especially important to MSC Industrial, since it’s go-to-market customer promise was that any order received before a very aggressive cutoff time would leave the facility before midnight.

A year or so later, I did a follow up story after the distributor implemented a highly-automated packaging system. Why? After MSC Industrial automated picking, packing became the bottleneck. Just because you can pick at lightning fast speeds doesn’t mean you can get orders out the door if your pack stations can’t keep up.

Packaging has always been a critical component in the supply chain. But, in recent years, with the rise in the number of e-commerce orders – even before COVID - coupled with changing consumer expectations about waste and changing rate calculations, packaging is in the spotlight. And, let’s not forget bottlenecks. So, what are packaging suppliers seeing out there? To find out, I spoke to executives at ORBIS, Quadient and Packsize. Between them, they represent both sides of the packaging equation: Among other things, ORBIS manufactures reusable plastic pallets, totes and containers; Quadient and Packsize manufacture automated packaging systems that allow pack stations to keep pace with picking engines.

Two primary themes emerged: One is the role of sustainability and the other is the role of automation.

Sustainability: “As companies are adding automation into their supply chains, and with more issues around cleanliness, sustainability that may not have had a justification on its own is now being designed into a solution,” said Bob Petersen, the vice president of marketing at ORBIS. “And, we’re seeing sustainability goals with more teeth in them,” he added. His point: If you went into an existing facility that already had rack, conveyors and other handling systems in place “it was just too costly to blow up the status quo and start from scratch to accommodate sustainable packaging.” But with new greenfield facilities going up, or completely new systems being installed in brownfield distribution centers, there is an opportunity to include sustainability in the design process. “If you design the rack systems a little differently, maybe you can get by with a 30 pound rather than a 40 pound pallet, and maybe you don’t need steel reinforced pallets,” he said. Similarly, some e-verticals, such as e-grocery, are considering returnable, reusable containers that can be dropped and subsequently picked up at a customer’s home to eliminate boxes and bags. Petersen added that ORBIS is taking sustainability to heart in its own operations; two years ago, the company launched an initiative to utilize ocean waste and is working with some customers to not only their damaged recycle plastic pallets, but to collect other plastic and metal waste. “We’re looking for ways to expand on an idea that’s already been successful for us.”

Automation: Automated, or on-demand, packaging solutions like those provided by Quadient and Packsize have a sustainability play. The whole concept of right sized packaging is to use the least amount of material needed to get an order from the DC to the customer without damage. That’s foundational, but it extends beyond sustainability, said Sean Webb, director of automated packaging solutions at Quadient. “Yes, there’s less material that has to go into the landfill,” Webb noted. “But you’re also getting more boxes on the truck, which is going to reduce your shipping costs, and you’re not spending money on void fill, which reduces your overall packaging cost.”

More than that, automated packaging systems play into the emerging narrative of using automation to do more with less. Take that one step further, and automated packaging is increasingly being integrated with an end-to-end solution. “Customers that have invested in other technologies, like automated storage and retrieval, are now seeing further opportunities to further automate their lines,” said Connor Pehrson, director of product marketing at Packsize. He added that they’re also realizing that if they look at the problem holistically, rather than as a point solution, they can gain more operational efficiency. “When we are integrated into the overall solution, you can do a better job of solving for rate and flow,” he said. “As batch picked items are sorted into unique orders, we can dispatch right sized packaging to the right location at the right time to improve the flow through the warehouse.”

Finally, automating the packing line is becoming critical as companies increasingly confront a tight market for warehouse labor. Like the MSC Industrial example, you don’t want to invest heavily in automated picking only to have a bottleneck at the packing line. “And, you can’t keep throwing people at the problem,” said Webb.