DS Smith hosts interactive US workshops to boost sustainable packaging design

29 Jul 2024 --- DS Smith has launched PackRight 2.0, a hybrid workshop collaboration for industry professionals. The new offering features interactive classes to help businesses in the FMCG, e-commerce and other industries innovate and enhance the sustainability of their packaging using DS Smith’s Circular Design Metrics.

The workshops, which are hosted at the company’s PackRight Centers in the US cities of Reading and Lebanon, bring DS Smith’s designers and engineers together with customers to develop design solutions that boost packaging efficiency, effectiveness, appeal and sustainability. 

The new workshops are the first in the US packaging and design space to employ advanced visual content platform solutions from French collaboration tech start-up Klaxoon. 

By combining creativity, strategic insights and technology to streamline the design process, the collaborative sessions reduce the time, effort and expense required to create new packaging that addresses brands’ growing circularity needs.

“Our PackRight Centers integrate circularity with design, improving the process needed to bring inspiration from the drawing board to the factory floor,” says Steven Rose, managing director for Packaging at DS Smith North America. 

“No longer just for in-person collaboration, our new PackRight design workshops enable all customers interested in reducing their environmental impact to take advantage of DS Smith’s design and engineering expertise and our proven Circular Design Metrics process.”

The workshops bring DS Smith’s designers and engineers together with customers to develop sustainable packaging.Circularity insights 
Through “Initial Audit,” DS Smith’s new PackRight offering begins with an initial site visit and an audit of a customer’s present packaging supply chain. 

This supply chain audit provides essential insights into the path of innovation required for a redesign that can boost the value, efficiency and sustainability of a customer’s packaging.

Following the audit, “Collaboration and Brainstorming” allows DS Smith PackRight Center specialists to conduct a workshop using digital collaboration tools to enhance brainstorming and teamwork between DS Smith and client teams. 

The platform combines whiteboard and video conferencing features, allowing session leaders to drive interactive sessions with live questions, voting, word clouds and additional tools to capture and report participant feedback.

Afterward, through “Rating and Comparing Circularity,” DS Smith’s designers and engineers help brands rate and compare the circularity of packaging designs across eight indicators: carbon footprint, design for reuse, supply chain optimization, recyclability, planet safety, material utilization, renewable source and recycled content.

Creating prototypes
Finally, with “Rapid Prototyping and Review,” workshop leaders create rapid prototypes on demand using the PackRight Centers’ digital printing and cutting equipment, and evaluate the performance of those prototypes on in-house testing equipment. 

High-end cameras quickly and accurately capture print samples for collaborative review and analysis. A proprietary DS Smith Value Tool analysis helps quantify the benefits customers gain by calculating the total cost of ownership for packaging designs.

With this process, DS Smith’s PackRight Centers help brands develop innovative and sustainable packaging designs. The result is more effective, circular packaging solutions that improve supply cycle effectiveness, increase sales and manage risk.

Recently, the new workshops helped a virtual team from a South American food brand establish new sustainability targets. 

DS Smith has also used the new PackRight workshops while collaborating with a leading equipment manufacturer on enhancements to fiber-based beverage packaging solutions.