A definite yes, says Michael Rubenstein, president of Alcan Global Pharmaceutical Packaging. And while sustainability has overtaken RFID as the current craze, Alcan has been focusing on the issue for years, he says, nothing that sustainability is not only linked to the environment and packaging source reduction.
"We systematically cover the areas of energy, climate change, natural resources stewardship, community development, well-being, environmental releases, innovation, industry shifts, and product stewardship," says Rubenstein. "This is what we call the Alcan 8.
"True sustainability employs life-cycle assessment thinking," he continues. "It helps us consider a product's social impact as well as its impact on resource availability, climate change and consumer behavior. We call this life-cycle approach product stewardship, and actually employ a Web-enabled tool that assesses a product by considering all sustainability dimensions at every stage of its life cycle."
So the healthcare market will demand sustainable packaging, and suppliers are already at work offering solutions with a competitive advantage.
Filling: Processing or packaging?
A second trend worth more debate is the strange phenomena of pharmaceutical companies engaged in filling, with half of the companies saying they in processing, the other half noting they are in packaging.
Why is this a problem? Because with the increased pressure on profitability, line efficiency moves further into the spotlight. If I call myself a processor, and I'm looking for OEE solutions, I will probably pass on packaging magazines or Web sites.
Yet, food and beverage packaging line controls and OEE are miles beyond the pharmaceutical industry. At Healthcare Packaging's Pharmaceutical Packaging Forum in Philadelphia, one speaker said that his company "took a page from the beverage community and decided to work split shifts through lunch and breaks." Previously they had been shutting down the entire line. This basic bit of proof shows we need to look "across the aisles" at both process and packaging disciplines to share answers.
At Packaging World's recent Packaging Automation Forum, Aubrey Hawkins of Eli Lilly outlined an entire packaging line controls strategy based on SA-88 batch processing, a fine example of combining these disciplines.
Eye on innovation
File the last trend under the old adage "the healthcare packaging industry is slow to change." I keep hearing about a lack of innovation in package design for both medical devices and pharmaceuticals. Yet, we've reported on thin strips, powder stick packs, inhalers, and Target's award-winning bottles as innovative, break-through package examples.
But at the recent Pharma/Med Device show in New York, a woman from the dermatological division of a major pharmaceutical company in Germany bemoaned the fact that she had traveled first to Paris, then to New York, and "had not seen anything she had not seen in Germany."
Alcoa Flexible Packaging's Bill Sharpless thinks the tools are there, but marketing has to step up and get involved. "The back of a blister pack is the ideal clean slate for talking to the consumer," says Sharpless. A good example of this is birth control packaging that takes you through your dosage, communicating your need to return to the store for your next purchase. Sharpless feels brand managers are missing a beat by not using this space to engage the consumer.
I'll throw in lack of ethnographic research, or actual in-the-field observation of package use. I've heard observations from in-field use about pillow packs that pop and break sterile seals in a nurse's smock, and a tray seal that failed due to storage room constraints. We need to take a cue from food and beverage yet again and commit to following our packages into the field. True innovation will come from observation.
--By Jim Chrzan, Publisher
"We systematically cover the areas of energy, climate change, natural resources stewardship, community development, well-being, environmental releases, innovation, industry shifts, and product stewardship," says Rubenstein. "This is what we call the Alcan 8.
"True sustainability employs life-cycle assessment thinking," he continues. "It helps us consider a product's social impact as well as its impact on resource availability, climate change and consumer behavior. We call this life-cycle approach product stewardship, and actually employ a Web-enabled tool that assesses a product by considering all sustainability dimensions at every stage of its life cycle."
So the healthcare market will demand sustainable packaging, and suppliers are already at work offering solutions with a competitive advantage.
Filling: Processing or packaging?
A second trend worth more debate is the strange phenomena of pharmaceutical companies engaged in filling, with half of the companies saying they in processing, the other half noting they are in packaging.
Why is this a problem? Because with the increased pressure on profitability, line efficiency moves further into the spotlight. If I call myself a processor, and I'm looking for OEE solutions, I will probably pass on packaging magazines or Web sites.
Yet, food and beverage packaging line controls and OEE are miles beyond the pharmaceutical industry. At Healthcare Packaging's Pharmaceutical Packaging Forum in Philadelphia, one speaker said that his company "took a page from the beverage community and decided to work split shifts through lunch and breaks." Previously they had been shutting down the entire line. This basic bit of proof shows we need to look "across the aisles" at both process and packaging disciplines to share answers.
At Packaging World's recent Packaging Automation Forum, Aubrey Hawkins of Eli Lilly outlined an entire packaging line controls strategy based on SA-88 batch processing, a fine example of combining these disciplines.
Eye on innovation
File the last trend under the old adage "the healthcare packaging industry is slow to change." I keep hearing about a lack of innovation in package design for both medical devices and pharmaceuticals. Yet, we've reported on thin strips, powder stick packs, inhalers, and Target's award-winning bottles as innovative, break-through package examples.
But at the recent Pharma/Med Device show in New York, a woman from the dermatological division of a major pharmaceutical company in Germany bemoaned the fact that she had traveled first to Paris, then to New York, and "had not seen anything she had not seen in Germany."
Alcoa Flexible Packaging's Bill Sharpless thinks the tools are there, but marketing has to step up and get involved. "The back of a blister pack is the ideal clean slate for talking to the consumer," says Sharpless. A good example of this is birth control packaging that takes you through your dosage, communicating your need to return to the store for your next purchase. Sharpless feels brand managers are missing a beat by not using this space to engage the consumer.
I'll throw in lack of ethnographic research, or actual in-the-field observation of package use. I've heard observations from in-field use about pillow packs that pop and break sterile seals in a nurse's smock, and a tray seal that failed due to storage room constraints. We need to take a cue from food and beverage yet again and commit to following our packages into the field. True innovation will come from observation.
--By Jim Chrzan, Publisher
