Packaging for consumer electronic products

Abstract

From the perspective of a multinational corporation producing durable consumer goods sustainable packaging is packaging that fulfils the right functionalities in the most efficient way. In order to achieve this, an integral design process is required. Such an integral approach to the design of packaging for CE goods would imply a process that takes into account all requirements, whether they are technical, financial, environmental or psychological in nature, and that also incorporates the relationship between the packed product and the packaging. In this paper this approach will be defined as packaging design engineering. In business reality however, a split between packaging design and packaging engineering can be observed. Packaging engineering has to do with protection, and fulfilling the distribution functions. It is about the 3-D design, which is also referred to as structural packaging design. This is the expertise typically offered by packaging suppliers. Packaging design on the other hand, has to do with the appearance of the packaging and is related to the marketing functions. Oftentimes packaging design will be limited to 2-D graphical aspects. It is typically the part of the total packaging concept that is supplied by external packaging design agencies. The tools and methods of packaging engineering and packaging design differ substantially. This is a result of the fact that packaging engineering deals with materials and mechanical behavior, while packaging design deals with people. In practice, one can observe that for a given product either the design aspects or the engineering aspects take preference, while the other receives less attention. When striving for optimal packagingeither from an economical or from an environmental perspectivethese two aspects will have to be balanced. This paper will analyze the existing approaches in both packaging engineering and packaging design, and assess their strengths and weaknesses. The data used originates from scientific literature, case studies of design projects and interviews with both employees from a major consumer electronics firm and employees from packaging supply companies. Ways of improving the integration of the two fields will be proposed.