Peter wonders: In future transport packaging will be intelligent

Turning to transport packaging of the future, what do we see in our mind’s eye? A cardboard carton, veteran of countless decades? Smart parcels of stylish design? Or intelligent boxes communicating with us? Digitalization and Industry 4.0 are currently the predominant topics in logistics. Fraunhofer Institute of Material Flow and Logistics (IML) has therefore recently investigated the repercussions of technological change on transport packaging. Their team assumed that transport packaging will also in future consist of the corrugated cardboard familiar to us. Paper possesses a random, individual fibre structure, suitable as an identification characteristic for low-cost and automatic product identification (AutoID) that could make labelling packages unnecessary. Electronic sensors for monitoring transport are another new aid. These permit details on a parcel’s condition to be recorded and passed to data centres at any time, and can also check on its still undamaged state. So the courier does not even get to deliver any items that might be damaged. The next few years will also bring changes in the way that parcels are delivered.  To the fore will be environmentally friendly transport bikes, drones or even robots. Hence the packaging of the future will be intelligent, even maybe to the extent of communicating with us through digital channels.