Packaging Design: General Framework and Research Agenda

Abstract

Traditionally, packaging design has had a subordinate role with respect to product design and production systems design; however, its impact on supply chain costs and performances can be devastating. Only in the past few years its strategic role has been recognized both in theory and in practice. Although packaging design research attracted considerable attention in the recent past, the purpose of this article is to broaden the field even further in two main directions. First, an attempt is made to review the status of literature on packaging design: a total of 89 articles published between 1990 and 2011 are reviewed and classified by content. In this contest, related International Standards are also presented and discussed, and a conceptual framework for packaging design is presented. Second, an agenda for future research in this area is provided

“Packaging Logistics” for improving performance in supply chains: the role of meta-standards implementation

“…Likewise, hidden costs associated with over-packaging in Europe, seem to be 20 times higher than the cost of excessive packaging materials (Azzi et al, 2012). …”

“…Although some of these costs can be partially measured, such as Green Dot or returnable packaging systems (Mollenkopf et al, 2005), other costs are not so easily measured. This situation has led to the development of the "Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)" technique, the most commonly used system for measuring environmental impact in packaging design (Svanes et al, 2010;Azzi et al, 2012;Albrecht et al, 2013;Grönman et al, 2013).…”

“…Going further, Azzi et al (2012) proposes a wider combination of different design requirements/functions, including commercial, productive, logistic, purchasing and environmental functions.…”

“…Thus, it would be possible to evaluate different alternatives combining the packaging structure and the four main design decisions (Olsmats & Dominic, 2003;Mollenkopf et al, 2005;Svanes et al, 2010;Azzi et al, 2012;Albrecht et al, 2013;Pålsson et al, 2013;Wever & Vogtländer, 2013;Accorsi et al, 2014;Gamez-Alban et al, 2014;Dominic et al, 2015;Faccio et al, 2015).…”

“…Past research (e.g., Saghir & Jönson, 2001;Klevas, 2005;Hellström & Saghir, 2006;Verghese & Lewis, 2007;García-Arca & Prado-Prado, 2008a;Azzi et al, 2012;García-Arca et al, 2014) consider packaging as one of the key and global elements that support an efficient and sustainable supply chain. These authors show that supply chain companies have different requirements with regard to packaging.…”