There are many reasons to change an existing, presumably successful, packaging material – a desire to increase packaging speeds or lower packaging costs, a change in graphics, the need to lower material costs, etc.
Recently, I was asked by a customer to review the company’s existing packaging materials with an eye to new technologies and packaging costs (while maintaining current performance). The customer was interested in potentially updating them as the existing materials are described by the company’s supplier as a “Cadillac” structure. The Cadillac runs well, and the packaging machine and the packaging machine operators clamor for the Cadillac because it gives them no significant manufacturing problems. But, the impression I got is the customer (or, perhaps, a new potential supplier) was looking to replace it with a “Ford” for potential material-cost savings. On its face, this seems reasonable, and perhaps a less expensive film could replace the existing lamination with comparable performance at a lower cost.
Ensure a successful transition
The question in my mind was how to do this and ensure a successful transition. It had been perhaps 10 or 15 years since I worked with the company in establishing some packaging options. My first questions were around the performance measures already in place for the Cadillac, so the company could effectively determine how the new Ford performed – to measure how the new structure was comparable, worse or better. But the company had no quantitative measure of the true cost of using the Cadillac film (i.e., the operating cost in terms of packaging machine uptime, packaging speed, package failures in manufacturing and packaging losses in distribution, etc.). This got me thinking about how best to proceed.
I’m an engineer, and because I guess so poorly, I work on Lord Kelvin’s principle – if you don’t measure something, then you can’t speak intelligently about how it works.
“Lord Kelvin famously stated that ‘when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science’” (Thomson 1889: 73). [1]
Measure true manufacturing costs
So, how do we institute a means of measuring packaging performance and effectively evaluate the performance of a new packaging material on an existing packaging machine to determine if it is a true improvement in manufacturing costs? Of course, you already must know the true manufacturing cost of the current material. This is obtained by measuring the amount and cost of incoming film compared to the amount of packages formed and their loss of film and packages through the distribution channels of your product.
A new film that runs faster and looks good in the number of packages produced is not better if the packages fail at a higher rate in the warehouse or in distribution to the end user.
A new film that runs faster and looks good in the number of packages produced is not better if the packages fail at a higher rate in the warehouse or in distribution to the end user. So, the cost of film usage and the return rates for packaged products must be quantified. This should be possible with the help of operators, production managers, shipping and accounting. You must have a true cost of successful packages produced, shipped and returned. Once you have quantified this, you can think about testing new packaging materials honestly and effectively.
Expect machine modifications
Next, you have to decide if the new material must operate as a simple replacement with no machine changes or if you are willing to accept that maintaining or exceeding existing performance with the new material will require changes to the operation of the existing packaging machine. Likely, changes are needed either in the process settings or perhaps in modification of the machine components, i.e., sealing temperatures, seal jaw pressure or perhaps a new sealing bar design, cut-off knives, etc. In my experience, most material replacements will require machine modifications to run to their optimum performance levels. Indeed, there would be no oriented polypropylene packaging films today without having first engineered significant machine modifications for the successful replacement of cellophane or oriented polyester films. Machine modifications are, for me, always an acceptable starting point and expectation.
If you are either willing or unable to modify machine settings or components, you must evaluate critically the new material in a head-to-head test from roll stock through successful shipping of the newly formed packages. This will have its own associated test and accounting costs. Such evaluations are critical to knowing the true cost and performance of any potential replacement of the existing packaging structures. Head-to-head tests also are instrumental in determining the machine modifications necessary for a successful replacement and any hoped-for packaging cost reduction.
Next, there must be a series of packaging machine evaluations of increased run lengths to determine how robust the new films and process changes are in manufacturing. High-speed cigarette packaging film machine evaluations always were extensive, ranging from a beginning of a few test rolls to finally a truckload of film to determine a success.
How extensive and what volume increases you institute for machine evaluations of new films should be based on your perceived economic risk and potential reward. But you must be committed to a full cost analysis of the film’s performance from purchase through product returns to truly know the magnitude of any improvements hoped for.
Reference
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/measurement-science/notes.html
Eldridge M. Mount, Ph.D.
Consulting Technical Editor
585-223-3996, [email protected]
ARC Member