Although most of the 2012 DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation went to various types of consumer packaging, including one for Goldfish Sandwich Bread, one of the gold awards was given for a clever industrial design. The CUBE, from Smart Packaging Systems, is a Lego-like system that goes from manufacturer's pallet to retail display floor with almost no reconfiguration or changes required along the way.
Honored by DuPont with a gold award for excellence in innovation and sustainability, the patented CUBE measures 40x48 inches, with a height that can be adjusted from 41 inches to 85 inches. It has the footprint of a standard pallet and sits on top of one while being assembled, and is engineered to support up to three levels of pallet stacking. Its high load compression resistance is 3,000 lb. for a static load and 1,300 lb. for a dynamic load.
Winner of a gold award in the 2012 DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation, the CUBE is a Lego-like system that goes from manufacturer's pallet to retail display floor with almost no reconfiguration or changes. (Source: Smart Packaging Systems)
The CUBE's parts have been designed for quick and simple assembly and disassembly -- this can be seen clearly in a video that shows how to put one together.
Retail versions can be transformed into durable product displays, cutting down on the labor needed to stack and display merchandise. Easy disassembly and reassembly makes it simple to reuse, and the materials are compostable and recyclable at end of life.
The design reduces the number of pallets and the amount of shrink wrap needed, often eliminating the need for wrapping a pallet assembly with film altogether. Made of an engineered 100-percent paperboard lamination and a combination of recycled and virgin fibers, its laminated and folded paperboard components eliminate the need for corrugated materials. This yields cost savings of approximately 40 percent versus traditional carton and pallet shipping. Traditional methods add secondary and tertiary levels of packaging. In some cases, it can also eliminate the need for wood, cushioning foam, honeycomb, MDF, and metal racks. Some cost benefit analysis figures for the industrial version are here.
DuPont gave the award to Smart Packaging Systems, as well as five other companies that collaborated in developing the CUBE's design and materials. These were: Acme Packaging, the inventor of steel strapping; One Way Display, which makes a paperboard retail display cube for flowers and plants; Incrementia, which contributed design, engineering, and manufacturing of some components to simplify automated assembly; along with Impact Manufacturing and My Compadre LLC.
Winners of the DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation are recognized for their excellence in innovation, sustainability, and/or cost or waste reduction.
This cube looks pretty cool and I love the fact that the engineering team considered the design from cradle to grave and factored in all aspects of how it would be used during its lifecycle. Very creative engineering.
Stretch wrapping provides a level of tamper-proofing that this doesn't seem to offer. The image included with the article shows what look like two sides of the cube that are essentially open; one could remove a smaller interior carton quite easily through these openings with out needing a single tool.
Granted, some operation with a knife is only a little more effort, but it does require more effort.
TJ, this photo is supplied to show the structure, and it definitely does not show shrinkwrap, although that can be applied. The point is that this reduces the need for it. This comes in somewhat different versions, depending on application, which you can see on the website.
What a great idea. Seems this team thought things through in a number of directions, including the move to retail display. I'd like to see this packaging gain traction.
I agree, Beth - very cool. And the reduction in material cost and waste reduction are awesome benefits. I also think it is more aesthetically pleasing than the old wooden pallets - making their delivery straight to the retail floor more palatable in some venues.
This a great waste reduction. At a previous employer, we used similar home built contraptions to hold components on pallets. The main reason was for cost savings. A pre-made and well engineered solution like this would have definitely helped with some damaged goods.
I'm not really sure that they are aiming for it to be tamperproof, per se. It sounds more like something that would contain the tamperproof items for individual sale and this would be unfolded to create the display.
This is a very clever idea. Anything that can reduce the waste stream is a plus. Now if we just get consumers to quit spending money on cheap, disposable products!
Tim, thanks for that input. Interesting to know that others have aimed at something similar in a homebrew version. Clearly, this has been a problem that needed solving for some time.
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