Packaging Design for Logistics: a new integrated approach

In industry, packaging design has often a subordinate role with respect to products and production systems design. However, it can lead to devastating effects on supply chain costs and performances. There is a need for methods and tools which show the impact of packaging along the whole supply chain by a logistic point of view in order to avoid sub-optimizations. Innovative approaches able to take into account different and often opposite needs are urgently required. The main conceptual innovation of the present work lies in its theoretical formulation of a new integrated procedure for an efficient design of packaging systems, according to a multi-criteria optimization approach. All design criteria applied will prosecute operative and logistic objectives (i.e. product integrity, personnel safety, ergonomics of manual activities, lot tracking and tracing, loads handling, vehicle saturation, environmental impact, etc.) including aspects linked to available International Standards.