The chapter focuses on the analysis of the impact of packaging in Operations Management (OM) along the whole supply chain. The product packaging system (i.e. primary, secondary and tertiary packages and accessories) is highly relevant in the supply chain and its importance is growing because of the necessity to minimize costs, reduce the environmental impact and also due to the development of web operations (i.e. electronic commerce).
A typical supply chain is an end-to-end process with the main purpose of production, transportation, and distribution of products. It is relative to the products’ movements normally from the supplier to the manufacturer, distributor, retailer and finally the end consumer. All products moved are contained in packages and for this reason the analysis of the physical logistics flows and the role of packaging is a very important issue for the definition and design of manufacturing processes, improvement of layout and increase in companies’ efficiency.
In recent years, companies have started to consider packaging as a critical issue. It is necessary to analyse the packages’ characteristics (e.g. shape, materials, transport, etc.) in order to improve the performance of companies and minimize their costs. Packaging concerns all activities of a company: from the purchasing of raw materials to the production and sale of finished products, and during transport and distribution.
In order to manage the activities directly linked with the manufacturing of products (and consequently with the packaging system), the OM discipline is defined. It is responsible for collecting various inputs and converting them into desired outputs through operations1.
Recently, more and more companies have started to use web operations. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is the most promising application of information technology witnessed in recent years. It is revolutionising supply chain management and has enormous potential for manufacturing, retail and service operations. The role of packaging changes with the increase in the use of e-commerce: from the traditional “shop window” it has become a means of information and containment of products.
The purpose of the chapter is to briefly describe a model of OM discipline usable to highlight the role of packaging along the supply chain, describing different implications of an efficient product packaging system for successful management of operations. Particular attention is paid to the role of product packaging in modern web operations.
The chapter is organised as follows: Section 2 presents a brief description of OM in order to engage the topic of packaging. The packaging logistics system is described in Section 3, before presenting experimental results of studies dealing with packaging perception by both companies and customers2; 3. Moreover, Section 3 introduces the packaging logistics system also including the analysis of the role of packaging in OM and a description of a complete mathematical model for the evaluation of total packaging cost is presented. Section 4 presents background about modern e-commerce and its relationship with OM. Packaging and e-commerce connected with OM is described in Section 5 and a case study on packaging e-commerce in operations is analysed in Section 6. Finally, the conclusion and further research are presented.
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