How can we help?
Click here to get in touch
Macfarlane Packaging’s Innovation Labs will help you find the optimum packaging solution through industry leading packaging design and testing.
See how our Innovation Labs can help you create the very best packaging for your products and reduce operating costs.
Our Innovation Labs have been designed to create solutions for the most demanding packaging challenges. By bringing together the latest technology, testing and talent in dedicated facilities we can cut the time needed to find your ideal packaging solution.
Benefits of visiting our Innovation Labs
An immersive experience
Our packaging Innovation Labs offer a fully immersive experience, giving you the opportunity to step away from your usual environment to focus on your product’s journey through the supply chain.
Bring your brand to life
A full day of creative exploration in one of our Innovation Labs can unlock new ways to use packaging to create a positive brand experience – whether your products are destined for a business or consumer.
Discover hidden costs
Our Innovation Labs will also help you to understand the total cost of your packaging supply chain, providing an environment where product damage, speed of packing, truckload weight, the need for storage space and more – can all be effectively evaluated.
Find savings – for your business and the environment
Your optimum packing solution will make your whole operation more efficient, saving time and money, delivering a great brand experience to your customers and reducing your business’s environmental impact.
Peek at the packaging design facilities at our new northern Innovation Lab
See inside our Milton Keynes Innovation Lab
Download our Innovation Lab Brochure
Macfarlane Packaging’s Innovation Lab brochure is perfect for showcasing ways in which Macfarlane Packaging can help solve your packaging challenges.
Macfarlane Packaging’s Innovation Lab offers to stimulating, open, dynamic and engaging environments that enable us to create solutions for even the most demanding packaging challenges.
Click here to download our Innovation Lab brochureState of the art equipment for packaging design & sampling
Our Innovation Labs are equipped with the latest tools and technology to bring your ideal packaging solution to life, enabling us to solve packaging challenges quickly and efficiently.
Bespoke packaging optimisation software
We can assess what your current packaging materials are costing you and the environment throughout your supply chain with our unique Packaging Optimiser tool. We can also show you how new solutions will help you reduce operational costs and lower your carbon emissions.
The latest packaging design software
Our expert team of technical packaging designers work with the latest software to solve your packaging challenges and create optimised packaging solutions that are tailored to your goals.
CAD sampling and digital printing
We can bring new packaging designs to life while you visit our Innovation Labs. The Macfarlane team can produce production-finish samples using our CAD table and digital printing.
Pack area and automation modelling with HoloLens technology
You can see how new solutions will look in-situ with our HoloLens headsets and automation modelling. Understand new warehouse layouts, interact with packaging designs and get a feel for what will work in your packing operation.
Rigorous testing to industry standards
Our in-house testing systems put packaging materials through intensive handling simulations to validate performance.
Reduce damages, without costly over-packing
Fast paced fulfillment and logistics require fit for purpose packaging that stands up to today’s automated and manual handling processes, from pick face to front door.
With our E-PASS network handling simulation (that works to ISTA standards) and load containment testing processes our technical teams validate pack performance in laboratory test conditions to recognised standards. Plus, our climatic chamber can test the performance of packs designed for temperature sensitive goods – so rest assured we’ve got rigorous testing for a wide range of applications.
Across our labs you’ll find:
- E-PASS testing – full simulation of the supply chain, including drop and throw testing
- Climatic chamber – put temperature controlled and chilled packaging to the test
- Load containment – see if your wrapped pallets are secure and suitable for transit
- Corrugate compression & stress testing – put your cardboard boxes through through their paces
Innovation Lab and the Significant Six
90% of a packaging operation’s costs are hidden. These costs to your business are also costs to the environment. They break down into the Significant Six costs that we can help you isolate and eliminate. A central role of our Innovation Labs is to assess the role of the pack itself in adding to these costs and developing an alternative that reduces or eliminates them.
The Significant Six costs are:
- Storage costs
- Transport costs
- Damages and returns
- Administration costs
- Productivity costs
- Poor customer experience
At our labs we can work with you to develop a pack that is lighter, smaller, more sustainable, quicker to fill, easier to open, looks great, and is stronger than your current one. Such a pack will reduce or eliminate all of the Significant Six costs.
To find out more about the Significant Six Packaging review we offer, click here.
Facilities that help develop creative packaging and deliver problem solving
- Conferencing facilities
- Interactive touch screens
- Packaging samples
- Packaging automation equipment and packing benches
- HoloLens mixed reality headsets
- Packaging automation equipment and packing benches
- Infill delivery systems
- Simplicit.e – online order management system
