| By Rich Lindgren | Senior Packaging Engineer | Chainalytics |
With more than 60 years in the package test method arena, International Safe Transit Association successfully hosted another great Transport Packaging Forum in 2018. Again this year, the event brought insightful benefits ranging from success stories and networking to discovering alternative ways to design, test, and simulate field to lab testing. One of the biggest changes of note was the location. This year wasn’t in Orlando again, but a fresh, wonderful venue in San Diego, CA.
Truly an international association, bringing attendees together from all over the globe who share common bonds between packaging and supply chain challenges, and as always intelligent industry presentations mixed with entertaining networking opportunities creates a remarkably powerful forum. New this year’s event, the forum had a split track focus, for half the conference a portion of attendees actually attended TempPack instead of TransPack forum speaking panels.
Every year, there are themes or points of emphasis that naturally reveal themselves throughout the conference. This year, anticipating and planning for the supply chain of the future definitely stood out in my eyes. My three biggest takeaways include:
- E-Commerce & Omni-Channel continues to be on the rise and it’s not going away, so make sure your packaging is ready for these new evolving supply chains. The challenges associated with this growing marketplace are only going to increase in complexity.
- There is a definite growing interest and appetite for multi-directional random vibration systems for conducting shipping simulation tests. Clearly a gap exists between in what actually happens in the real world in the back of 53ft trailer headed down the road and what our traditional vertical displacement vibration systems can duplicate. That being said, our traditional systems are still very vital to engineering improved packaging solutions and are not going away.
- More so than any of the other four previous TransPack events I have attended, there was a much higher mix of presentations focusing on the business side of the supply chain. With that comes a little less emphasis on super technical presentations, but overall this new mix was well received, and I would expect more of the same in years to come.
Another highlight for me was seeing my colleagues present a unique business based presentation about how to sell your packaging and supply chain projects up through leadership.
As always, the event was both captivating and informative, and I’ve gave me and my colleagues a lot to digest, consider, and implement. I hope to see you at the Transport Packaging Forum in 2019 headed to another exciting new venue in Denver, CO!
Rich Lindgren is a Senior Packaging Engineer and holds lifetime Certified Packaging Professional (CPP) accreditation from the Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP) and has extensive experience with both packaging optimization and supply chain cost reduction projects.
Read more on how the Packaging Optimization team has helped drive supply chain improvements:
- (Blog) Driver Shortage Concerns? Start with Bringing Packaging Efficiency to Your Shipments
- (Blog) Blockchain & Packaging: How Can Technology Improve a Supply Chain’s Packaging Strategy?
- (Blog) Crunched for Warehouse Space? Think Packaging!
- (Blog) The Physical Internet Sets its Sights on Revolutionizing Global Insights
- (Success Story) Chainalytics Provides Packaging Solutions for Major Motorcycle Manufacturer
- (Success Story) Chainalytics Reduces Cost and Carbon Emissions through Packaging Optimization for Consumer Packaged Goods Manufacturer
