After attending the PACK EXPO Trade Show in Chicago and connecting with a variety of companies in the packaging industry, I gained valuable insights into the key challenges and priorities shaping the field right now.

Companies are grappling with workforce management, the push for automation, and the need to optimize productivity—issues that demand innovative solutions to remain competitive in this market.

One such solution is CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) software. A CPQ solution can help companies overcome many of these obstacles by simplifying complex quoting and estimating processes and improving the customer experience from order to delivery

Key Challenges in the Packaging Machinery Industry

According to PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, the packaging industry is dealing with several critical issues:

1. Productivity and Asset Optimization: Companies must streamline operations to meet deadlines, improve equipment effectiveness, and make the most of limited resources.
2. Complex Packaging Formats and Rapid Changeovers: Packaging machinery must be adaptable to new materials and quick changeovers, requiring better collaboration and communication across the supply chain.
3. Labor Shortages: Companies struggle to find and retain skilled and unskilled workers, prompting a need for more user-friendly equipment and career development support.
4. Need for Enhanced Automation: The demand for automation and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) is growing, but challenges remain around system flexibility, scalability, and ROI.

How CPQ Solutions Address These Challenges

CPQ technology offers powerful tools to overcome these hurdles, improving the quoting and estimating process, workforce efficiency, and production flexibility:

1. Improving Productivity and Time-to-Market: By speeding up complex quoting and integrating with ERP and CRM systems, CPQ reduces lead times and improves resource management, helping companies meet deadlines and on-time delivery performance.
2. Facilitating Rapid Changeovers: CPQ enables quick configuration adjustments and instant price recalculations, allowing companies to stay agile in response to new materials and unique customer needs, without extensive manual intervention.
3. Guided Selling for Workforce Efficiency: CPQ platforms include guided, user-friendly selling tools, helping less experienced staff configure products accurately and reducing dependency on specialized knowledge.
4. Automating Complex Configurations: CPQ streamlines the process by automating configurations, drawings, and routings, ensuring that only compatible features and components are selected. This reduces the time sales and engineering teams spend on estimates and allows customers to receive accurate quotes faster, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and trust.
5. Supporting Flexibility and Scalability in Automation Efforts: CPQ technology enables easy customization of equipment configurations, allowing companies to adapt quickly to markets that are demanding more automation and optimize production.