Aicomp experts: How digitalization, automation and machine learning will define packaging’s future

07 Aug 2024 --- Innova Market Insights pegged “Digitalized Circularity” as its top trend for 2024, noting that industry players are increasingly integrating new digital technologies to automate, streamline and secure their production processes and supply chains. We speak to experts at Aicomp, a software specialist providing digital solutions to packagers, about the industry’s computational future.

Aicomp was founded in 2000 by five people. The founders say they saw the need for digitalization in the industry and began developing systems applications and products (SAP), software used to centralize and manage data management, to help companies boost their transparency and automation capacities. 

Initially working with paper packaging group Klingele Papierwerke, the team began utilizing SAPs variant configurator (LO-VC) to capture product-specific data and calculate possible production routes and material consumption, explains Matthias Waltz, head of product development at Aicomp. 

“Ensuring a deep integration in SAP standard processes allows us to benefit from the full power that SAPs enterprise resource planning (ERP) system brings without a disruption in the user experience,” he says. 

ERP is a software system that helps companies run their entire businesses through singular channels, supporting automation processes in areas like finance, human resources, manufacturing and supply chain services. 

Aicomp now has around 80 team members with a total of eight offices in Europe and the US.

A configuration expert working with Aicomp software.Customizing digital solutions  
Steven Mason, Aicomp’s global head of new products, explains that software development requires personalization for individual businesses, for which SAPs are essential. 

“We should highlight that the market niche we specialize in is for industries, like packaging, that have highly customizable and complex products, with low margin and high volume where accuracy in costing is imperative,” he explains. 

By rethinking the approaches and addressing the most common issues of the previous decade, Aicomp then launched VCPowerPack, a configuration engine that allows “mass personalization in production,” through automated price quoting for complex products in a user-friendly interface. 

VCPowerPack was launched in 2007, but Waltz says the biggest switch came with the introduction of SmartVC, which adds an industry-specific user interface on top of SAPs LO-VC. 

“Breaking the complexity of product configuration for the packaging industry into smaller building blocks, ensured stability while gaining a high degree of flexibility. The possibility to add custom-specific parts without jeopardizing the stability of the industry standard functionality has been seen as a big game changer by our customers,” Waltz continues. 

Data storage and Packaging 2.0
In 2014, the company recreated the VCPowerPack to optimize the solution and its footprint. 

“Introducing our own data storage solution for the configuration data allowed us to reduce the number of LO-VC characteristics from close to 20,000 for a complex display to just two,” explains Waltz. 

“As SAPs LO-VC was not designed for such large configuration models, this change increased the performance drastically.”

In 2021, the Aicomp released Packaging 2.0, designed specifically for the corrugated and folding cartons sector. 

“This restructured approach provides an even higher flexibility in the product definition as well as in the definition of the production process. It has been the cornerstone for many new enhancements — like digital printing, label application and integrated preprint production,” Waltz says. 

The company then developed IQ.catalyst, a machine learning (ML) solution that can train AI models. “With our product configuration, we capture a large set of information about products and combined with the production order feedback in SAP we have a valuable data source for the actual performance of certain products on specific work centers on the shop floor.”  

“Integrating this solution with our Machine Routing Customizing allows for accurate estimation of production performance of newly configured products, without the need to manually define work center performance data.” 

Waltz says IQ.catalyst is independent and can also be used for other tasks, which will follow in the future in areas like picking the correct sequence of work centers and estimating product costs based on very limited data entry. 

Machine learning and AI 
Matthias Waltz, head of product development at Aicomp.As an ML service, IQ.catalyst makes integration of artificial intelligence into products simple and also supports custom-specific scenarios, Waltz emphasizes. 

“The service takes care of the transformation of data from business data to ML-ready data, which in case of neural networks or MLP (multilayer perceptron) is a value between 0 and 1. With ready-to-use model definitions the training of work center specific models based on industry relevant data is simple.” 

Aicomp is now working with packaging industry players like OMP, Esko, Ortec and T.con. 

“We started a quotation process in SAP and are designing the packaging in Esko, planning production in OMP, running trim optimization on the corrugator with T.con and planning delivery with Ortec,” Waltz says. 

“Product configuration is embedded in the full value chain, and the data captured during the quotation phase gets detailed and validated throughout the process. With automated master data creation, we eliminate the need to reenter information, eliminating the possibility for user errors and freeing up resources to grow the business rather than performing repetitive tasks.” 

“With the intuitive user interface we also ensure faster turn-around on quotes and estimates and reduce the need for training of the users.” 

Partnerships and upcoming developments 
Aicomp is now focused on delivering consulting solutions intended to empower its customers to streamline operations and gain a sustainable competitive advantage, thereby keeping track with new technological advancements — like digital printing — and growing its overall coverage of the industry while improving usability. 

“We are also committed to accompanying our customers on their journey to a circular economy while addressing all regulatory requirements. With product configuration, we hold the key values regarding recyclability and the product composition,” Waltz continues.

“Standardization is key for fast implementation projects as well as the agility of the system in a fast-changing sector such as the packaging industry. We will also continue to grow our industry coverage and add more areas of the packaging industry like rigid plastic or molded pulp.”

“At the same time, we will continue to invest in our cloud offering, Cubicus, to reach parity or better parity, plus our offering of VCPowerPack when it comes to industry coverage. This means deeper integration with our AI solution IQ.catalyst to support the user during the configuration process and allow for quick cost estimates early in the sales process.” 

By Louis Gore-Langton