Product and Package Develompent - An Integrated Approach

Since very few products are truly lifecycle adapted, most products need supportive functions during part(s) of their lifecycle — ranging from extensive systems of primary, secondary and tertiary packages to a simple wrapping or chemical surface protection. When a package is needed, consideration is seldom given to it during the actual development of the product. See Bramklev (2004). An illustrative example of the consequences of not addressing the development of the product and its package in an integrated manner was provided by a company developing and manufacturing gasoline pumps and emanates from the late 1990s when they started sell gasoline pumps to Eastern Europe. Since the company did not have any previous experiences of delivering pumps to these countries, they were unaware of the magnitude of loads and other environmental conditions facing the pumps during handling and transportation to the sites where they were to be installed. The result in terms of gasoline pumps that were severely damaged during the distribution phase demanded immediate actions from the company. The first reaction was to improve the “strength” of the pumps by redesigning those parts that were damaged. The redesigns solved the problem, but significantly increased the costs for the pumps. The lesson learned was that an improved, more effective and efficient bad carrying package provided a cheaper and easier way of solving the problem, thus also avoiding the problem of providing different pump solutions or, alternatively, over-dimensioned pumps to the majority of the customers. The action taken by the company was to enrol one of its engineering designers in a packaging design course, thereby creating the possibility to more efficiently and effectively handle this kind of problem in the future. The actual reduction in costs and lead time are not known, but the company claims that they were “significant”. This instance is just one of many similar cases emanating from the globalisation of the economy, and is an important concern for a successful development of global enterprises, as they are based on networks composed of divisions and supplier companies dispersed all over the world. In global enterprises the handling, transportation and storage of parts, sub-assemblies and final products creates an inner and an outer market, demanding in-time and error-free deliveries at lowest possible costs and with a minimal impact on the environment. In order to successfully fulfil these demands it is necessary to make sure that the Product-Package-System, the PPS for short, is developed as efficiently and effectively as possible. In a proposal aiming at facilitating the fulfilment of the demands for an efficient and effective development of the PPS, Bjärnemo et.al.(2000) suggested a development process for the integration of packaging logistics into the product development process. By adopting the proposed integration concept, it is possible for a multidisciplinary product and packaging development team to allocate essential functions between product and package, thus making it possible to fulfil the demands set out for a given PPS in a most effective and efficient way — something unattainable in the traditional, sequential, development of product and package. In three surveys performed within the mechanical, food and pharmaceutical industries, Bramklev (2004) verified the interest and expectations in industry for the proposed integration concept. In a second stage of this research project, the overall objective is to develop an industrially implementable process model for the integration of product and package development. The first obstacle to be confronted in striving to obtain this objective has been the lack of a suitable package development process model. Based on extensive studies in industry as well as on the literature on current package development processes, Bramklev (2007) has developed a package development process model adapted to facilitate the proposed integration concept. The objective set out for this article is to report the development of a first version of an integrated product and package development process model. Before undertaking this task it is important to establish the point of departure for the development efforts reported