SuperCorrExpo, North America’s largest corrugated event, brought together 6,000+ packaging professionals from September 8 – 12. Advantive and Kiwiplan attended this year’s trade show just a couple weeks ago looking to:
- Establishing new and stronger relationships
- Fostering deeper collaboration
- Addressing and resolving current challenges
- Identifying emerging industry trends
- Understanding the impact of rising trends
SuperCorrExpo Highlights
Wayne Stocks, Senior Sales Engineer, showcased Kiwiplan’s capabilities to streamline processes and increase operational efficiency with over 20 interactive and dynamic demonstrations. The demos highlighted the key modules our customers utilize, including order management, costing and pricing, purchasing, production recording, and shipping management.
The highlights from Wayne’s presentations were Kiwiplan’s ERP and MES functionalities. We connected with key customers, discussed our important integration capabilities with existing systems, and provided detailed insight into our waste reporting mechanisms. Wayne also lead an intimate, customer-centric conversation about Advantive’s commitment to their success, and received their feedback on how we can continue to improve Kiwiplan.
Advantive Team Customer Insights
Throughout SuperCorrExpo 2024, our sales team captured valuable insight from attendees about their key pain points. Common themes included the need for greater traceability, tighter regulatory compliance, and minimizing waste while maximizing efficiency. These conversations reaffirmed the capabilities of Kiwiplan, that both increases operational efficiency and aligns with emerging industry needs.
Some of the key insights provided by our sales team included:
- Automated Machine Connectivity: There was a strong need for increased machine connectivity to further automate processes, which was a recurring topic of interest.
- Cost-Cutting Tools: Many attendees inquired about tools that assist with reducing costs, including TSS, which was frequently praised for its ability to minimize freight expenses. Features like OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), CWR (Corrugator Waste Reduction), and QMS (Quality Management System) were also topics of high interest.
- Operating Multiple Facilities with Centralized Teams: Another significant trend was the need to manage multiple facilities using centralized teams and systems, allowing businesses to analyze production loads across plants more effectively. Data warehousing was seen as a key solution to enable this kind of visibility.
What Are Some of the Emerging Industry Trends?
SuperCorrExpo 2024 was all about the future, and many of the best conversations we had were about new industry trends that have emerged since the last show held in 2021. Whether you were attending as a contributor or just looking for a solution, conversations focused on utilizing data-driven dashboards, artificial intelligence, and digital printing and cutting.
- Data-Driven Dashboards: Business intelligence (BI) and dashboards are becoming increasingly important in the corrugated packaging industry. Many machine vendors are shifting from providing HMI and basic reporting to real-time dashboards to enable better monitoring and optimization of machinery.
- Artificial Intelligence: Since the last SuperCorrExpo in 2021, artificial intelligence has become a hot topic, going from one meeting session to three meeting sessions. The Tuesday keynote covered the topic of AI in production and how it can help manufacturers improve their processes by analyzing data and making decisions.
- Digital Printing & Cutting: Major printing industry players were all present at SuperCorrExpo. Digital printing and cutting continues to be a rising topic, with many smaller players attempting to enter the market and more vendors providing cutting solutions.
The insights Advantive and Kiwiplan were able to gather from this event was invaluable and will help us stay ahead of these trends and deliver more real-time insights, automated decision-making, and advanced digital printing solutions to our customers.
Advantive Promotes How MES Improves Sustainability Efforts
Sharon DiRe, Advantive’s Senior Product Marketing Manager for our Packaging portfolio, spoke on a podcast at SuperCorrExpo 2024 about how Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are driving sustainability efforts, and the key Kiwiplan features that enable them.
Sharon brought Advantive’s unique perspective to the interview and covered some topics, such as:
- Regulatory Compliance and Traceability: MES enables manufacturers to meet new regulations by providing detailed genealogy tracking, from raw materials like paper (roll stock) through to the finished product. This ensures full traceability, which is critical for compliance, like the new EU deforest regulation that requires companies to be able to trace materials from the tree to the box. We are currently looking to enhance Kiwiplan’s genealogy tracking capabilities to help meet the new regulations.
- Waste Minimization: MES plays a pivotal role in minimizing waste through optimal scheduling, die cutter optimization, and concurrent job management.
- Optimal Scheduling: MES helps in scheduling production in a way that maximizes the use of raw materials while minimizing waste. By planning production runs that align with material availability and machine efficiency, MES reduces the amount of leftover material.
- Die Cutter Optimization: Maximizing the number of boxes produced per sheet, MES ensures that the layout is optimized to minimize waste during cutting operations.
- Concurrent Job Management: MES allows for running concurrent jobs where possible, reducing machine downtime and ensuring that materials are used efficiently across different production lines.
- Efficiency in Resource Utilization: MES enhances the efficiency of resource utilization through automated scheduling adjustments and right material, right machine.
- Automated Scheduling Adjustments: MES automatically adjusts machine and truck schedules to maximize efficiency. This includes optimizing truck loading and delivery routes, which reduces the number of truck runs and therefore lowers the carbon footprint. Kiwiplan handles this with 24/7 scheduling automation through its TSS solution.
- Right Material, Right Machine: MES ensures that the correct materials are delivered to the appropriate machines at the right time, reducing delays and waste associated with material handling errors.
- Sustainability Through Automation: By enabling 24/7 automation, MES reduces the need for manual intervention, which not only improves efficiency but also reduces energy consumption and waste. Automated systems ensure that resources are used optimally, leading to fewer emissions and a reduced carbon footprint.
- Waste Reporting & Continuous Improvement: MES includes waste reporting functionalities that allow manufacturers to track their progress in waste reduction and resource efficiency. This data-driven approach enables continuous improvement, as manufacturers can identify areas for further waste reduction and implement strategies to achieve sustainability goals.
Thanks for Joining Advantive & Kiwiplan at SuperCorrExpo 2024
Kiwiplan’s presence at SuperCorrExpo 2024 solidified our commitment to our customer and made a lot of positive impressions on our booth visitors. SuperCorr also provided us with valuable insights and emphasized the importance of optimizing manufacturing processes. It’s clear that Kiwiplan is well-positioned to meet the evolving needs of the corrugated packaging industry, from engaging in live interactive demos to the meaningful conversations with attendees.
Interested in learning more? Book your demo of Kiwiplan to see how our integrated packaging ERP and MES software can meet and exceed your system requirements.