The need today is more creative package design. Gone are the days of an engineered container that brand owners design a colorful label and fight for prime space on store shelves. The need now is to create a brand image or shape that is iconic and distinguishable just by sight alone.
Private labels or store brands find shape critical as they march towards a product and package quality that’s giving the premium brands a run for their money. With so much creative energy being unleashed it is important to harness all of that energy into something viable and realistic.
Who better to help guide this creativity than software embedded with artificial intelligence, otherwise known as Predictive Modeling. These algorithms are designed to make your next package functional in both design and prediction of proper material distribution. These digital validation methods that were unthinkable a decade ago is becoming more of a standard practice and is both agile and accurate.
Creative Design agencies use their raw uninhibited talent to conjure new shapes and concepts. These can then be rendered or 3D printed for aesthetics and ergonomics. After that the samples are labeled, product introduced and closures applied to seal it and demonstrate the final impact of a new offering. The unanswered question remains, can this be successfully manufactured at the desired price. This leads to much brainstorming and stage gating discussions geared towards finding ways to give these concepts a chance to make it to the real world. Imagine a world where each new idea gets vetted by a computer simulation that pings back the ideal weight and shape, the implications for cycle time, the resultant wall thickness distribution and the required performance.
When this feedback is available to the creative designer then they can push the limits of their skill and refine their concepts into viable prototypes. The end benefit is a fast track to well designed and functional, innovative packages that can revolutionize the next decade of growth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SUMIT MUKHERJEE
Director of CAE and Simulation at Plastic Technologies, Inc. His 23 years of experience includes finite element analysis (FEA) for package performance prediction. Mr. Mukherjee obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in India and earned a Master’s degree in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Toledo Polymer Institute.