Recycling Reconsidered

Here's an interesting article from Eco-Insights blogger Robert Lilienfeld:

Recycling is not a new phenomenon. From the Sumerians who built the first-ever cities 4,000 years ago to modern Europe and America, virtually every civilization that has ever existed has tried recycling as a way to save its resources, and ultimately itself, from disappearing.

But it hasn’t worked once. Perversely, the reason is not because people didn’t try hard enough. The fact is, they tried too hard! By focusing so heavily on recycling and not on the primary reasons that resource availability and environmental problems arose in the first place, societies have consistently missed the real opportunities to sustain natural resources and thus their own human and financial resources.

So, let’s be honest. Recycling, for all its benefits, will never by itself prevent or remediate major environmental concerns such as climate change, habitat destruction, and loss of biodiversity. It is simply the icing on a very large, very thick, and very heavy, cake.

By the way, both the EPA through its Sustainable Materials Management program, and the G-7 in its latest Leadership Recommendations, all agree with this assessment.

What we really need to see is political dialogue relating to population growth and the concurrent increase and changes in consumption patterns. Thus, those of us in the packaging value chain must work harder to reverse the popular notion that a better environment starts with less packaging waste.

We also need to demonstrate that packaging’s critical role is to prevent waste of the far greater resources used to produce, transport and store the food and other goods contained within.

Again, recycling the packaging is merely the icing on the resource conservation/waste prevention cake.

Develop Custom Robotic Picking Applications

MotoPick™ is a user-friendly, highly advanced software package that allows for the development of machine vision-based, high-speed picking solutions. This powerful software can synchronize multiple robots equipped with vision to pick fast moving product off a conveyor and place it on an outfeed device, tray or box in an organized arrangement. MotoPick provides building blocks to create optimal solutions for up to ten robots and eleven conveyors. It also offers pattern-based distribution of product and dynamic load balancing among multiple robots.

MotoPick provides precise control and coordination of infeed and outfeed conveyors. If the advancement of either the infeed or outfeed conveyor falls behind, the speed of the opposite conveyor can be automatically decreased and even stopped until the operation is equalized.

Multiple cameras are available based on conveyor width, workpiece size, target accuracy, production volume and conveyor speed. MotoPick is designed to function with minimal additional hardware requirements.

Dog food packaging gets more personable

Here's an interesting article by Rick Lingle from Packaging Design:

Just Right by Purina’s custom dog food blend launched last year enhances the label on the bag packaging to make it even more personal—and more fetching for pet owners.

The pet food market is trotting along at a 3% CAGR for the period 2014-2019, according to a new report, which also points out that “the increase in pet humanization has led to growth in premium products, and clients are asking for customized and premium packaging solutions from vendors, which is positively affecting the sales in the market.”

Perfectly reflecting that trend is Just Right by Purina dog food that was launched last year (see Dog food gets personal with custom packaging published last October). As a pet listens to its owner’s voice, Purina listened to dog owners who wanted to make the packaging even more focused on the owner’s beloved pet. In doing so, the company expects the enhanced presentation will make the custom products even more fetching for consumers.

I virtually borrowed a friend’s dog, a 6-year old golden retriever named Riley, for which Just Right created custom artwork for this article that appears above. The bag copy reads: “This blend has been crafted to provide Riley with the complete, balanced nutrition he needs as a 6 year old golden retriever. Formulated by Rick and Purina in November 2015, it includes lamb as the primary protein source. This blend is a mix of high quality ingredients that promotes healthy skin and coat, promotes an active lifestyle and supports joint health and mobility.”

We reconnected with Brian Lester, director of marketing for Just Right by Purina, who discloses the reasoning and reality behind the refresh.

What’s changed from before and why?

Lester: Just Right’s recent packaging updates bring an increased focus to what matters to our consumers most—their dog. By listening to detailed consumer feedback, we discovered that we had the opportunity to further exceed their expectations for a personalized experience by emphasizing their unique dog on our packaging, and that’s exactly what we did. Our previous labels contained a 195x200 pixel image of the dog on the left side of the front label. Now, the image is 560x410 pixels and is centered across the full-width of the label, taking up nearly half of the label’s real estate.

To support this enhancement and provide a better personalization experience for our consumers, we also updated the photo upload process on our site. We’ve implemented Filepicker, which now allows consumers to upload photos directly from platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr, as well as from native files on their computer or mobile device. The tool also allows consumers increased ability to zoom, crop, and rotate their images directly on our site.

The revised labels also continue to include our existing personalization techniques, including dog’s name, owner’s name, unique blend name, product features/claims, and personalized feeding instructions.

What will be most obvious to customers about what’s new?

Lester: The greater emphasis on their dog’s photo should be incredibly apparent to existing consumers who are accustomed to the first generation of our label design. For new consumers, we believe that the increased focus on the unique dog photo will further convey our belief that every dog is unique and deserving of a personalized feeding experience. We’re giving our consumers’ dogs the same amount of prominence and real estate that most dog foods give to one “model” dog, demonstrating our commitment to each unique pet.

While our recent label revisions focused on enhancing the photo presence on the front of the package, we also want to emphasize that the label on the back of the packaging is just as personal as what is on the front. This back label details the personalized benefits of each dog’s blend and includes feeding instructions tailored to that individual dog. While the back label is remaining consistent in these revisions, we know that the information it contains is just as important to our community of highly involved dog owners as it is to us.

10 Ways Smart Packaging Extends Your Brand

Here's a good post from John Van Ankkeren:

What can hardware manufacturers learn from cream cheese? In this example, brand owners can increase brand loyalty and gain powerful revenue with packaging that is smart.

In 2014, Kraft changed both the recipe and tub design of its iconic Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand. Gone were the familiar circular vessels. In their place, redesigned oblong containers that stop products from shifting on store shelves and keep labels facing forward, so consumers can easily spot their favorite flavors.

With its new stackable design, Kraft can stock an additional row of products on a grocery store shelf. Meanwhile, the addition of high-quality, in-mold label graphics show appealing images of whole fruits and vegetables. The result: Philadelphia Cream Cheese stands out in a sea of sameness on store shelves and retains its long-standing reign as America’s best-selling cream cheese.

What’s so smart about that? How about increased brand loyalty and powerful revenue gains? Sounds pretty smart to me.

Alas, changing the shape of a container or packaging label isn’t often viewed as smart packaging. We beg to differ. In its purest form, smart packaging is a way to differentiate products and elevate brands. It may ignite a conversation among people, package, brand and objects in a connected world. Or, it may serve as a platform for sensory experiences, added functionality and improved performance. And, all together, smart packaging is experiencing massive growth; the sector is expected to reach $39.7 billion by 2020.

Smarter packages that provide better safety, wellness, convenience, value and gratification will increase brand loyalty because these factors drive most purchasing decisions and behavior.

So, whether you make cream cheese, computers or consumer electronics, consider these top 10 ways that smart packaging can illuminate your brand:

1. Go beyond conventional packaging to take advantage of hybrid approaches that integrate both rigid and flexible materials to attain better shelf life while improving sustainability and customer interfaces.

2. Use smart codes to embed more information onto your package. Standard codes have been around since the 1960s, but new advancements are making it easier to link products to machines, databases or multimedia experiences. Heinz tomato ketchup was among the first consumer packaged goods companies to use a mobile augmented reality app to turn a ketchup bottle into a fully interactive recipe book viewable on a shopper’s iPhone or Android device.

3. Deliver extended protection and more functionality through new engineered materials and substrates on labels that change when exposed to certain variables. Interactive food labels that communicate a product’s state of freshness or temperature are gaining momentum while advances in anti-theft tag sensors continue to reduce shrinkage.

4. Add intelligent functions through the integration of different manufacturing components to connect, capture, analyze and provide business intelligence. Connect packages to smartphones and cloud services in ways not available previously so you can monitor conditions and behaviors contextually, track supply chains and foster interaction between other things and objects.

5. Follow advancements in printed electronics on flexible films and miniaturized components, which are finding their way into packaging concepts today. The flexible structure of the circuits make it possible to integrate this added intelligence into existing package molding and labeling processes.

6. Enrich “lock and key” brand protection while ensuring a rich consumer experience. Such is the case with HP Instant Ink, which includes microchips in inkjet refills so the printer automatically buys ink for the customer when its supply runs low.

7. Create and nurture immersive sensory experiences when the package is opened or activated. Perhaps the brand mark becomes illuminated when the package is opened. Equally interesting could be an “under the hood” in-store tracking capability that alerts retailers if the package is opened before it’s purchased.

8. Turn your package into a billboard promoting other offerings and dynamic displays of user ratings while giving consumers multiple ways to connect with your brand.

9. Measure packaging performance for greater sustainability: Reduce, reuse and recycle. There are far-reaching benefits from following the performance of your package through its entire lifecycle to modify, improve and eliminate waste. Keurig’s decision to make all K-Cups recyclable by 2020 has boosted the brand following controversy over the environmental impact of its original multi-layer plastic K-Cup designs.

10. Leverage social networks to connect physical objects to social platforms. Enabling the connected conversation creates endless opportunities to foster integrated marketing, social campaigns and peer recommendations.

What connects all these different kinds and levels of smart packaging is the opportunity to add value to a package that either you couldn’t or didn’t do before. This not only gives you greater control and management over your supply chain, it lets you gather more customer intelligence so you can analyze vital data about your customers and how they use your product. Most important, you can build brand brilliance by enhancing user experiences while increasing product usefulness, revenue and return on investment (ROI). Read more about Smart Packaging in this 5-page research brief “Smart Packaging and the Future of Brands.”

Rising Drug Costs Trouble White House

The president's administration is getting in on the recently hot topic of lowering drug prices by calling for a forum later this month aims to address the issue.

According to The New York Times, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will host a day-long conference, "to consider ways of speeding up the discovery of innovative drug treatments while making them more affordable."

Patients’ advocates, doctors and hospital executives, insurance carriers, state officials and pharmaceutical executives were invited.

The news outlet reported that the event's invitation doesn't specifically mention price controls, but the first panel at the forum is scheduled to be talking about, "the impact of rising pharmaceutical costs."

A Guide to O-Ring Materials

Courtesy of Gallagher Fluid Seals, here’s a guide to O-Ring materials, how they are used, and when to avoid using them:

Nitrile (Buna, HBR): A widely used, economical material that has strong wear resistance and mechanical properties. Temperature: -55 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit Applications: Petroleum based oils and fuels, dynamic applications Avoid: Break fluids and ozone Hydrogenated Nitrile (HNBR): Nitrile base with added chemical strength and resistance following hydrogenation.

Temperature: -50 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit Applications: Water and steam up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, fuel systems, oil resistant and high abrasion applications Avoid: Strong acids and polar solvents such as ethers and ketones Polyacrylate (ACM): Widely used by auto makers in power steering and transmission systems.

Temperature: -15 to 350 degrees Fahrenheit Applications: Mineral oil, engines, gear boxes, power steering, transmissions Avoid: Cold temperatures, hot water, steam Ethylene-Propylene (EPDM): Strong ozone and chemical resistance

Temperature: -55 to 275 degrees Fahrenheit, 300 degrees Fahrenheit when used with peroxide curing agents Applications: Brake systems, glycol-based fluids, H20 steam Avoid: Mineral oil products and hydrocarbon fluids Chloroprene (Neoprene, CR): The first commercial synthetic rubber developed, chloroprene has good mechanical properties over a wide range of temperatures.

Temperature: -40 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit Applications: Refrigeration, due to its excellent ozone resistance, low-temp H20 Avoid: Esters, ketones and aromatic and chlorinated hydrocarbons. Butyl: An all-petroleum compound, butyl has low gas permeability and good resistance to sun exposure and ozone.

Temperature: -70 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit Applications: Life science and medical devices, FDA applications, numerous specialized compounds for specific material certifications Avoid: Highly abrasive applications and water and steam over 250 degrees Fahrenheit Fluorosilicone (FVMQ): Broad temperature performance and strong fuel and solvent resistance, but weak abrasion resistance due to high friction.

Temperature: -75 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit Applications: Aerospace, fuel and mineral oil Avoid: High temperature air, dynamic applications Flurocarbon (Vikton, FKM): The high fluorine levels in fluorocarbon rings give them excellent swelling and permeability resistance. They also feature high temperature and chemical resistance.

Temperature: -15 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit Applications: Broad chemical resistance, transmission and blended gasoline Avoid: Low temperatures, ketones and amines Tetrafluoroethylene-Propylene (AFLAS): Excellent chemical and temperature performance.

Temperature: 15 to 450 degrees Fahrenheit Applications: Aerospace, steam, hot water, oil fields Avoid: Chlorinated hydrocarbons, ketones, acetic acid Perfluoelastomer (FFKM): Of all elastomers, this one has the highest performing temperature and chemical properties, as well as low out-gassing and extractable properties.

Temperature: -15 to 600 degrees Fahrenheit Applications: Semiconductors, chemical processing, vacuum applications Avoid: Fluorinated solvents and perfluorinated lubricants If you have questions about O-Ring materials, contact Gallagher Fluid Seals, Inc. Our experts can answer any questions you might have about these small, yet crucial, sealing products.

Managerial Tweaks That Make a Difference

Stuart Margolis, a financial expert in the printing industry, has a worthwhile piece in Printing News where he notes that, inherently, owners learn to watch out for signs of trouble before that can impact business and many times the school of hard knocks actually pays off.

Constant control to correct financial trouble spots before they turn into a big mess is a common denominator. Keys to success seem to be: keeping an objective viewpoint, understanding the key indicators that trouble could be on the way, surrounding yourself with a loyal team that isn’t afraid to tell you the truth (good or bad), and having a commitment to accept the challenge to deal with the sea of changes to operations, technology and customers that are in front of you.

As a successful leader you understand that when everything’s going great you must keep up the momentum and optimism but don’t let rose colored glasses blind you. To have success after weathering storms of recessions, technological overhauls, and resignation of key staff members is a great achievement. You believe in your product and so do your customers. Your business model is sound. You’re convinced that your business will succeed. You also realize that it’s important to regularly step back and take an objective look at how your business is doing financially.

Otherwise, why would you keep trying so hard? Most successful business owners measure their accomplishments based on beating the competition by earning higher profits. It’s not that their money grubbers, it’s because their competitive and they want to win the race.

We recommend taking a big picture strategic view quarterly. Successful owners follow suit by looking at performance, weaknesses and trouble areas as well as potential financial challenges. Look at your financial standing compared to previous quarters, for the same time frame year-to-year, to the profit leaders in the industry, and most importantly to your budget and expectation. Paying attention to how your sales, profit margins, growth and cost structure changed in those time frames will tell you a lot about where your business is headed financially.

View your business as it is. Then, plan or reinvent it for what you want it to be. Don’t ignore the small stuff. Little “glitches” like exceeding costs on the cost sheet a few times, reducing customer markups, letting accounts slip in the aging cycle can all work against you to put you in a real jam. They add up. Be honest among your management team and hold each other collectively and individually accountable.

Once you’ve finished your next plan, focus on accomplishing your goals and implementing the changes needed. Even little improvements like cleaning the floors, or contacting a certain customer that we’re waiting for their approval, staying on top of a customer accounts receivable balance and calling key customers to “check in” all add up to keeping your success alive and well.

Read more here.