The commoditization of consumer electronics products and its influence on packaging design

The traditional purpose of packaging for consumer electronics (CE) products was to get them in one piece from the factory to the consumers home. It was purely focused on the physical distribution. In that time, buying a CE product could be considered a major family investment. However, times have changed, as nowadays a trend of commoditization...

Packaging for consumer electronic products: The need for integrating design and engineering

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...

Essential perspectives for Design for Environment: Experiences from the electronics industry

Consolidation of knowledge, information and experiences in application of Design for Environment principles is done at various levels, ranging from easy to understand slogans to design guidelines, and even to tailor-made solutions. This brings about that dissemination of this knowledge should be done taking carefully the intended audience and...

Sustainable packaging design for consumer electronics products: Balancing marketing, logistics and environmental requirements

Packaging design for consumer electronic products is a challenge because contradictory demands from a distribution perspective and a marketing perspective have to be balanced. With several company departments involved and powerful external stakeholders this is a complicated matter. As the level of sophistication of data concerning a packagings...

Design for volume reduction

Traditionally packaging design-for-sustainability (DfS) strongly focuses on resource conservation and material recycling. The type and amount of materials used has been the driver in design. For consumer electronics (CE) products this weight-based approach is too limited; a volume-based approach is needed. As this paper will show, from an...

Balancing Environmental Performance with Sales Functionalities in Packaging for Consumer Electronic Products

Two major changes are currently taking place in the world of Consumer Electronics. They are, first, the relocation of production to low-wage countries, in particularly China. This results in longer distribution distances, which lead to a higher relative importance of this phase in the entire life cycle. To make this phase as efficient as...

Bulk packaging for consumer electronics products as a strategy for eco-efficient transportation

By postponing the packing of consumer electronics (CE) products into their final consumer package, until after long-distance transportation, substantial economic savings and environmental improvements can be achieved, due to higher efficiency during transportation. In such a case, long-distance transportation is done in multiple or bulk packages...

Influence of product failure on comparative life cycle assessments of protective packaging