Packaging

It’s widely recognized that the packaging is often more innovative than the product itself. It is often the packaging that makes products more functional or differentiates a brand and catches consumers’ attention.

 

Today consumers want practical, on-the-go convenience and easy-to-open packaging that provides protection or keeps the contents fresh and flavorful. They also want packaging made from sustainable materials, and are being supported in such concerns by environmental scorecards that large retailers are using to rate their suppliers. It’s no wonder why consumer product manufacturers regard their packaging suppliers as critical partners in their efforts to successfully launch new products and grow sales.

At TBM Consulting Group we help companies optimize their continuous improvement capabilities to build and strengthen customer relationships, drive growth, increase profits and build stronger cash reserves. We have worked with thousands of manufacturing and service companies to apply a unique combination of lean and Six Sigma time-based management techniques, which we bring together as Lean Sigma, to align improvement initiatives with financial performance. In addition to competitive pricing, packaging manufacturers must build efficient and dependable supply chains, innovative designs and materials, and superior quality.

We have worked with packaging companies to:

  • Get to market first with unique shapes, custom labeling and reduced weight by rapidly moving new designs from concept to production
  • Align global production capabilities and resources with market needs
  • Dramatically improve manufacturing efficiency and order delivery times
  • Apply process excellence discipline beyond manufacturing into support functions such as sales and marketing, customer service, engineering and product development
  • Become preferred suppliers through superior responsiveness and consistent quality.

TBM has helped hundreds of companies capture the expertise of cross-department teams and apply Lean Sigma tools to achieve double-digit improvements in cycle time, quality, uptime and productivity. Compounded over time, such experiences and results can build a highly competitive culture of excellence that drives market growth.

At Pactiv Corporation, for example, we helped implement a Lean Sigma operating structure that started with strategy deployment. The company’s executive team established ambitious yet clearly defined objectives that are making a dramatic difference in market performance. Then they aligned operational improvement activities with these corporate priorities, which resulted not only in improved financial performance, but it has grown the business as well.

Specific initiatives that have supported critical business performance improvement include the following:

  • Implementing total productive maintenance programs (TPM) and monitoring overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) to improve equipment uptime, enhance quality, increase yield and ultimately avoid costly capital expenditures.
  • Creating process capability and discipline for capturing voice-of-the-customer (VOC) feedback to create clear market specifications that identify future product features.
  • Using Demand Segmentation to decrease raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods inventory while maintaining service levels and increasing profitability on lower volume, customized orders.
  • Helping to standardize the demand planning process to incorporate promotion and point of sale data by region.
  • Integrating the use of web-based technology to better align performance metrics and deploy strategic breakthrough iniatives through the use of our proprietary web-based software, Dploy Solutions.

TBM can help your company become a lean packaging manufacturer by setting business priorities and fully aligning your Lean and Six Sigma capabilities with your business performance objectives. We can provide the expertise, framework and structure to build a continuous improvement roadmap aligned with your vision and strategy. Our goal is to enable your business improvement organization to become self-sufficient.

Many companies struggle to realize the full potential of continuous improvement initiatives. However, CEOs throughout the world have identified operations dexterity as a critical strategy for coping with the complexity of today’s business environment. A lean business system can provide the foundation for transforming your business model into one that is supportive of growth, flexible and responsive. The hardest part is always cultural, which provides the foundation for sustainable progress. If it were easy, everyone would do it and there would be no competitive advantage.

TBM business consultants have worked with packaging manufacturers around the world to generate breakthrough business improvements. To learn more about our experience and how we can help your company move forward, call us at 800.438.5535.