Requirements on packaging for consumer goods

For today's consumer, the packaging of consumer goods and other articles of daily use has become a commonplace. The fact that even the packaging of "disposable products" requires a complex packaging product, the fruit of a sophisticated development and manufacturing process, is by no means generally appreciated by consumers.

The requirements placed on packaging items have increased enormously in recent years, reaching a high level of complexity. Packaging items are required to offer products adequate protection both during transport and shelf life, to provide stackability, to ensure hygiene, and to maintain environmental friendliness. Packaging must satisfy legal requirements, inform consumers, and, by being attractive, help sell the products inside.

Artwork Life Cycle Management

These requirements on packaging, which in part may be difficult to reconcile, underline that the development of packaging for consumer goods is an optimization task, demanding very time-consuming approval processes.

Challenges in the Artwork Process

Typically, artwork management processes involve the application of a range of different technologies and systems in the preparation, creation, modification, archiving and distribution of artwork. The frequent iterative steps and time-consuming communication and approval processes typical for the artwork process give rise to long cycle times and dormant periods and a high volume of temporary documents. In the absence of a continuous electronic audit trail, GMP guidelines demand extensive paper documentation at all stages of the process. Because the frequently used e-mail-based communication approach using .pdf files fails to achieve process transparency, reliable versioning or structured archiving in a central database, wide-ranging problems arise.