A recent article LOHAS: The Next Secular Shift discusses how people embracing the Lifestyle Of Health And Sustainability are changing the face of consumption. “The dynamics of the LOHAS market, which are really driven by a whole new consumer mindset of sustainability and peak resource theory, has propelled the economic growth of the LOHAS space.” According to the author Andre Peschong, the market for LOHAS has been growing at a double digit pace despite the recession. While it feels like oxymoronic to discuss peak resource theory and personal consumption in the same space, people will not stop consuming but how and what they consume does change.

Peschong argues that “What we really need to look at is the next secular shift in the consumer marketplace. A secular shift is a long term trend that changes the way we live and/or readjusts our mindsets.”

Peschong concludes, “This secular trend is in its infancy but will become a prominent factor in the years to come. People finally realize that resources are finite and that we need to focus the global consciousness on sustainability, which is why the LOHAS movement will be such a major factor in the economic growth of, not only the US, but the world.”

Thinking ahead of this curve mean anticipating not only what products should be coming down the road but how people will be impelled to consume them, how to deliver them – which leads to how to package them.

What are your thoughts? We would love to learn them and talk further.

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We have been surprised that without telling anyone what we are working on, we are getting calls for our new machine. Here is an engineering drawing of our new table top diefold wrapper.

Our new machine is designed to wrap small objects at speeds up to 15 per minute. While we thought it was perfect for candy, our first customer is actually wrapping rolls of tape. The machine provides a lovely tuck and fold wrap that puts all the folds on the bottom of the package. That means only one seal point is required – on the bottom of the package. Depending on the wrapping material and the product, heat sealing may not be required.

the folds are on the side with sealing on the bottom

It is perfect for small products and ones that are relatively short, so that side folds do not work well. It will handle round or square products. And is affordably priced for smaller operations!!

More to come soon.

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I just finished reading Atul Gawande’s book The Checklist Manifesto. Now I am thinking about how to apply it to processes at Package Machinery: marketing and sales processes, wrapping machinery design, wrapping machine building, training and installation.

You may have seen his articles in the New Yorker magazine. Gawande is a surgeon in Boston and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. While his book is primarily about how checklists can improve outcomes in medicine by demonstrating how that has worked for him in the operating room and how it works in the airline industry, his concepts have applications for all of us in our daily as well as business lives.

Package Machinery has had checklists for installation and training and for machine assembly but now we know they need regular revision and updating. in light of issues we have had, we have developed a checklist for discussion entitled Expectations in which we look at making sure we understand what our customer’s expectations are, whether we can meet them and make sure they have the capability to meet their own. We do run off and testing in our facility before we ship to a customer to make sure we have done it all right and we have checklists for that.

ISO 9000-9001 does this in another way by documenting processes within the organization. WHile ISO 9000-9001 is a great corporate goal, I think checklists will get us most of the way there.  Somehow I think Atul Gawande’s book is a much easier read than ISO guidelines.

Kate

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Paper wrap for gift

(more…)

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We were visited today by a prospect interested in a machine for his unique application. He asked about what happens after he buys a machine from Package Machinery.

We showed him pictures of wrapping machines from the 1920’s and explained that we still sell parts to keep those machines running.

In fact, we provide unlimited telephone support to our customers indefinitely. We do not make our machines obsolete. If you want to run it, we will make sure you get the parts to keep going. We have customers with machines from the 1920’s through each decade. The machines vary but the service and support do not.

Our rebuilds start with sandblasting the  frame, through complete reassembly and replacement of worn parts, and provide completely new guarding, wiring and controls.

We think that true sustainability means our customers do not have to scrap a machine that has years of life left in it, whether they rebuild it or we do.

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Sometimes it is important to think about the impact that our customers’ customers have on packaging and therefore on our business. Packaging is a critical part of process of influencing consumers.

An article by Kim T. Gordon, Identify New Consumer Norms notes that consumers have changed their behavior.  ”Decitica has identified four distinct consumer segments: Steadfast Frugalists, Involuntary Penny-Pinchers, Pragmatic Spenders and Apathetic Materialists.

1. Steadfast Frugalists make up about one-fifth of American consumers across all income and age groups. The vast majority of Steadfast Frugalists are committed to self-restraint, are the least brand loyal and expect their new shopping behaviors to stay with them for a long time. Many consider themselves tightwads, according to Decitica.
   
2. Involuntary Penny-Pinchers have been forced to embrace thrifty shopping methods, but unlike the Steadfast Frugalists, they’re less likely to restrict themselves to buying store brands or generic labels. They have household incomes of less than $50,000, are largely in their 30s and 40s, and like the Steadfast Frugalists, six in 10 are women. The vast majority say they’re scared by the recession, are stressed, and they’re more worried about the future than other groups.
   
3. Pragmatic Spenders have higher spending power, six in 10 are men, and they are largely individuals in their 60s from the Northeast and West. More than one-third of people with household incomes greater than $75,000 are in this group, and they’re more likely to resurrect their past spending patterns in the future.
   
4. Apathetic Materialists tend to be under the age of 40, with most in their 20s, and fewer than 10 percent in the Decitica study admit to being very focused on value. They’re the least changed in their spending habits and future intentions.”

What impact are these new types of consumers having on your packaging? What changes do you need to make in  response? How can we help?

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“Everyone is pursuing sustainability,” he writes. “But if change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change, we really need to focus on raising the costs of the unsustainable systems that represent the unsustainable status quo.” Fast Company cofounder Alan Webber

What makes packaging unsustainable?  Sustainable is not just green materials or recycled content. It includes the cost of disposing of the packaging when it is finished. It includes too much packaging, but intermediate and consumer packaging.

• overpackaging     Do you really need to  put something in a box before you wrap it? Will a tray do? Can you wrap it as is? Can you bundle it rather than put it in an intermediate box? How can you minimize the packaging? Does the package conform to the product or inflate it?
• using more material than you need      Can there be too much material in the wrap? As a process, overwrap uses less film that shrink or flow wrap, but what else can be reduced or reused? Is the packaging the right size for the product?
• not telling the consumer what to do with the packaging. See http://www.packagemachinery.com/media/sustainable-wrapping-a-consumer-view/ for packages that make consumer choices easier. Many consumer want to know what to do with the packaging when the product is gone.

What else makes packaging unsustainable?

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We decided 2010 was the year to have resolutions for Package Machinery and its wrapping machines as well as our personal ones.

We are resolved to

• Create new machines. Our first will be a semi-automatic machine for wrapping individual rolls of tape. Yes, we are moving to wrapping round things!!
• Shorten the lead time for machine delivery. This will not only make our customers happier but should help us be more profitable but it will be tough.
• Find ways to take improve our machine performance. We want to go faster while delivering the same high quality wrap. We want to run a larger variety of wrapping material, including new bioplastics.
• Revisit our old machines designs to see if there are modern improvements that would sell. We have designs for bread wrappers, universal wrapping machines, high speed overwrappers (350+ ppm), flow wrappers and diefold wrappers. Anyone out there looking for any of these?

We hope you – our customers and prospects – will come to us with your wrapping desires and collaborate on the right wrapping solution for you.

We wish you all a happy 2010. May it be a happier and healthier year than 2009.

There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor. ” - George Santayana

Hope to talk to you soon.

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1. You get  high wrap quality with minimal investment in knowledge and time with Package Machinery’s semi-automatic overwrapper, the Wrapster.
2. Installation cost is minimal for a semi-automatic overwrapper. Hook it up to an air supply and plug it in. The manual tells all.
3. A semi-automatic wrapper  costs less to run because the skill level of staff to operate the machine is minimal.
4. A semi-automatic wrapper costs less to maintain. It does not require highly skilled maintenance staff to support it.  It is brand new and comes with a one year  warranty.
5. Changeover is simple and easy. Mechanical machines take a long time to set up when a package size changes. Wrapster set up is done in couple of minutes with an Allen wrench.
6. Size parts are much less expensive. For lots of short product runs, there is no better option in overwrapping than the Wrapster.

Of course, all this depends on your volume of product to wrap within your time constraints and the the skill level of your existing maintenance employees.

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A consumer products customer recently asked Package Machinery to do some calculations on their wrapped package. It was a flow wrapped (fin seal wrap) tray and they wanted to know what the difference was to overwrap. We carefully took the film off their tray and rewrapped it overwrap style.  We then measured the difference between the two sheets of film. There was a 14% reduction in film use in the overwrapped tray vs, flow wrap. We then looked at the corrugated box that the trays had been shipped in and realized that they could shrink the dimension on the corrugate by one inch.

The savings was not simply in the film  but in the corrugate and then in the space and weight in shipping. Theses were small numbers on one box but, in volume, certainly added up.

Because we were curious, we tried the same thing with another customer’s tray. The second tray was much smaller than the first, but the film savings were basically the same: 13.5%.

The other factor we noticed was that the trays seemed more rigid with the overwrap. We realized that because the overwrap adhered closely to the tray, it added some structural integrity to an otherwise flimsy tray.

In all fairness to flow wrap, it is an airtight seal, which overwrap is not. But if saving film, structural integrity and corrugate are more important than completely airtight seal, overwrap will serve you better over the long run.

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