Integrating design for assembly guidelines in packaging design with a context-based approach

In the product lifecycle, the packaging, as an object, has been on the back burner with respect to product and production systems design and some authors stated that its influence starts at the packing stage and ends when the customer obtains the product. Only a few years ago, its strategic role, protecting, containing and preserving the product, has been recognized, both in theory and in practice [1]. In this way, the packaging design has been focused in the accomplishment of some specific objectives, such as cost and space saving, material reduction, and quality problems avoidance. These approaches are object-related, but the design process is not considering that the packaging is also utilized to handle, transport, distribute, retail and promote the product. Therefore, even if mathematical solutions could be obtained for space optimization problems, these could not be relevant at industrial level since they are unfeasible throughout the packaging lifecycle, from either logistics or quality standpoints; and new restrictions should be considered. An approach proposed by Lee & Lye [2], called "Design for manual Packaging (DFPkg)", is based on Design for the Environment (DFEnv) and Design for Assembly (DFA) guidelines, since the activities related with packaging could be considered as assembly activities seeing that all the packed pieces are part of a unique system. Nevertheless, some guidelines from DFA are omitted or decontextualized and they are not connected to restrictions in the mathematical models. This paper presents an integral approach for packaging design, complementing the guidelines proposed by Lee & Lye [2] in key contexts of the packaging lifecycle, in order to generate restrictions for an optimization model. Besides, this approach has been validated with a real industrial case study where the obtained solution is compared with the current one. © 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V