Digital technologies and data provide an important transformative driver for the food packaging industry. Enabling us to make our core business more efficient, from operations to sales management, unlocking opportunities in the way we collaborate with our customers and suppliers and how we design our packaging to be smarter and sustainable.
At Huhtamaki we see digitalization is an important lever in helping us to achieve our ambition of becoming the first choice in sustainable packaging solutions. It can help us in three ways: by improving our operational performance, enabling us to serve our customers better and by helping designing for circularity through smart packaging with sustainability at its center. We have set ambitious goals for digitalization in our 2030 Strategy – by 2030 we will
- Have 100% of our production sites and equipment digitized and connected
- Have 100% of all our worldwide customer transactions digital
- Ensure 100% of our packaging has a digital identity
Improving operational performance – digitalization in production
The potential impact of digitalization is clear both in how we organize and how we run our operations. Digital improvements in our manufacturing units – such as the use of real time machine data, preventative maintenance and automated material flows – will lead to potentially significant improvements in efficiency, and the same initiatives will help us also continuously improve the sustainability of our operations.
Serving our customers better – digitalization in customer transactions
Digitalization will truly enable us to create added value for our customers as we will be able to digitally integrate our customer facing processes with those of our customers. We see potential in building our digital capabilities to create a better customer experience for existing and new customers, whose transactions with us – from quotes and order confirmations to invoices – will be electronic.
Efficiency in these fundamental everyday activities will have real customer benefits saving time and money, but more importantly, this will mean we can collaborate with our customers in new ways.
Simply put, by digitalizing our activities, we will become the first-choice partner for many customers because we will be the company easiest to do business with within our industry.
Exploring new business growth avenues – smart packaging
Digitalization also touches on the design of smart packaging. At Huhtamaki, we foresee printed tags and codes that enable packaging to have a true digital identity to provide substantial added value. One of the key values in smart packaging is the easy access to information on the raw materials used in the packaging, which facilitates easier recycling, customer engagement with the content and traceability of the origin of the product. Smart packaging goes beyond printed tags, codes and other potential features, it can unlock sustainability and contribute to circularity. Today we are actively exploring our role in providing these types of digital services to our global customers in the future.
We see the future alive with possibility and digitalization playing a transformative role in our ability to deliver on our 2030 Strategy. The pace of change is accelerating and we are excited about the possibilities this brings in terms of protecting food, people and the planet.
