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Innovation Labs

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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

An image of the iLab using for Packaging Design with the caption Take the virtual tour
Take the virtual tour
Take the virtual tour

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 brochure

State 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. 

An image of an innovation lab product in use. Macfarlane Packaging has two innovation labs which are perfect for your businesses packaging design.
Packaging designer working in the Macfarlane Packaging Innovation Lab

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
Climatic chamber testing for packaging designs at the Macfarlane Innovation Lab

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:

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.

Innovation Lab for Packaging Design

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
Innovation lab for Packaging Design
Innovation lab for Packaging Design
Innovation lab for Packaging Design

Video: See more of our Milton Keynes Innovation Lab

Video: Augmented reality and Connected Packaging from the Macfarlane Packaging Innovation Labs

Video: Why Dunelm work with Macfarlane Packaging