The Painful trials

Any packaging development has to undergo the stage-gate system and more often than not a whole lot of trials. A new shape may look very good, but will it be runnable on the packing machines, a new material is wonderful to feel, but would it give adequate shelf life to the product, an innovative substrate for printing the label may just not be suitable for the packing lines and off course a whole lot of testing and trials to ensure the environmental friendliness.

More often than not the trials become a potentially painful exercise, a test of patience for the entire organization and a huge amount of convincing to be done for all the members of the team.

Giving up is definitely not a solution , neither is going through all the pain !

The ability to think through and predict the possible outcomes are indeed a competency that one needs to build upon . This helps in generating a finite set of options and setting out a priority of what should follow next. Armed with such a competency , one can design the packaging and all its elements ensuring the least possibility of trial failure.

The critical issue comes in when one takes the path of Innovation and steps into uncharted territories. In such a case predicting outcomes of trials may be a distinct possibility and thus clinching success gets even more difficult. Often the solution lies in making enough studies about the new variables or soliciting advise from Experts , internal or external to the organisation. The solution also lies in ensuring that each and every step is followed with utmost rigour and the team commitment sustained irrespective of failures. The initiator for any such innovation thus carries the responsibility of not only educating others and detailing out what he/she has visualized but also suggesting mid course corrections.

The devotion to conducting trials and simulations is a key to the success of a Packaging development exercise, but there are numerous daily examples when we perennially avoid them or want to move ahead with assumptions, or what is easy and convenient or simply lack of will to support the innovation.

The reality is that the pain is in our minds, if we begin to enjoy the journey looking at the end outcome , the tight rigours will appear as pleasures.