Packaging: Smart Packaging Systems earns DuPont Award for innovation

Smart Packaging Systems, an Austin, Texas, based company, has been cited for excellence in an international competition among companies providing packaging solutions. Smart Packaging Systems won the award for The Cube, a transport packaging system that enables companies to move their products from factory to store with maximum ef?ciency and full protection of the product.

Now in its 24th year, the DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation is the industry’s longest running, global, independently judged celebration of innovation and collaboration throughout the packaging value chain. Each year an esteemed panel of judges awards diamond, gold or silver honors based on “excellence” ratings in one or all of three categories: Innovation, Sustainability, and Cost/Waste Reduction.

“I am grateful and humbled to have the Cube receive such a prestigious award,” said Luis Felipe Rego, inventor of The Cube. “In our world of rapidly shrinking resources, it is imperative that we all strive towards open innovation to reduce costs and waste and to improve sustainability.”

The Cube is a patented disruptive technology within the materials handling and packaging industry and has numerous applications in the retail and industrial markets. It is designed to go from product pack-out at the end of a manufacturer’s production line, into distribution, be it national or international, in any mode of transportation, straight to the retailer sales ?oor, eliminating layers of costs.

While every part is recyclable, the units are re-useable and transformable throughout the supply chain to insure that nothing hits a land?ll,” says Darryl Kelinske, CEO for Smart Packaging Systems USA.

For industrial applications, the Open Architecture Crating System has been shown to reduce or completely eliminate the use of wood in industries with intensive wooden crating assembly labor costs. It is can help manufacturers reduce product damage costs and at the same time eliminate costly over-packaging of products as varied as solar panels and wind turbines, and even basics such as air conditioners and appliances, by as much as 20%. In both the retail and industrial markets, the Cube has enabled manufacturers to signi?cantly reduce waste while complying with all of the shipping standards of their daily operations and businesses.

The Cube retail application was the ?rst design to meet the display labor savings, environmental, and ISTA testing directives from Walmart. It meets Walmart directives because it is Ready to Ship, Ready to Display and Ready to Sell. Both palletized and stackable, it is easy to handle while its structure eliminates product damage and provides modular versatility.

“The DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation celebrates how collaborating throughout the value chain can bring cost-effective innovation to the market in a way that matters to consumers,” said Shanna Moore, global director sustainable packaging, DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers. “The Cube® embodies that spirit.”