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Packnomics = The Economics of Packaging Design and Size
Packnomics = A packaging consulting firm dedicated to minimizing the overall landed costs of products. An integrated and systematic approach to more intelligent product and packaging design, smarter testing, procurement engineering, damage reduction, better consumer usability, environmentally responsible material selection, and material handling guidance all leads to lower costs and increased customer satisfaction.
Kevin Howard is the principal consultant for Packnomics, LLC. Kevin has been a practicing packaging engineer since 1984, after receiving BS and MS degrees in Packaging from Michigan State University and holding internships at IBM, MTS Systems, a research assistantship at the School of Packaging, and teaching Packaging Dynamics for two years during graduate school. When appropriate, Kevin enlists other packaging consultants, test labs, and packaging suppliers to attain the best results in the least amount of time possible. His well documented successes and creative problem solving during 17 years as the senior packaging engineer for Hewlett-Packard's largest product line, inkjet printers, now can be utilized by others interested in exploring opportunities to reduce costs in dramatic ways, oftentimes while simultaneously improving quality.
Kevin Howard also works with lawyers as an expert witness. His background in transport packaging has allowed him to develop a deep understanding of how items should be packaged for different distribution systems, how packaging and products should be tested to help assure damage-free shipping and injury-free use by consumers, and a long history of direct field observations have educated him in how products can be mis-handled.
Kevin is also available for teaching Design for Distribution short courses. Please see the side bar for more information. Kevin has taught courses at two universities on distribution packaging and testing, but this new course will be focused on how companies can dramatically reduce costs through better packaging design, smarter product design, more effective testing methods, and developing a more refined process to achieve the lowest possible landed costs for products.
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New! New! New! New!
Kevin will begin teaching 3 day courses on Design for Distribution: Packaging Design and Testing, starting October 13 - 15, 2009 at the DDL Laboratory in Minneapolis. Kevin will show how he has reduced costs by tens of millions of dollars for some of the largest companies in the world. Though hundreds of people have seen Kevin give 30 minute presentations over the past 20 years at the largest packaging conferences in the US, this will be the first time Kevin has provided true instruction on how to design products and packaging more effectively, how to test smarter, and how other companies, large and small, have saved incredible sums of money through better design.
Kevin is partnering with Equipment Reliability Institute to produce this short course. Please see their webiste for more information and to register for this course:
< http://www.equipment-reliability.com/packaging_course1.html >
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* Following are the latest magazine articles written on Kevin's focus for reducing logistics costs and damages through better product and packaging design. This is a link to the POMS magazine, published by the Production and Operations Management Society. Please see page 19. < http://www.poms.org/chronicle1/Vol15No1.pdf >
* Green Packaging, a long time focus of Kevin's! Please see this May 2009 article in Inbound Logistics Magazine, featuring Kevin's thoughts: < http://www.inboundlogistics.com/articles/features/0509_feature02.shtml >
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The following article was published by ISTA after Kevin left Hewlett-Packard. It provides a synopsis of Kevin's work during his 17 year career there. ISTA newsletter article about Kevin. This is a PDF file. Please see pages 10-11.
The following are conferences Kevin has presented at in 2009:
Michigan State University, School of Packaging, January 27th, Packaging Executives Forum, Packaging Sustainability < www.packaging.msu.edu >
Green Packaging Conference, Toronto, Canada, February 25-27, sponsored by IQPC, International Quality and Productivity Center
< http://www.iqpc.com/ShowEvent.aspx?id=145972 >
Transport Packaging Forum, sponsored by the International Safe Transit Association (ISTA), April 6-9, Las Vegas, NV
< www.ista.org >
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Recent presentations made by Kevin Howard include:
2005, ISTA Packaging Forum: The Distribution System in India and how to design products and packaging for this market.
2007, ISTA Packaging Forum: How laboratory tests can lead to excessive packaging and high field damages.
2008, ISTA Packaging Forum: The importance of direct field observation, and why measurements only tell half the story.
2008: International Molded Fiber Association: How Hewlett-Packard was able to change from EPS Foam to molded pulp for inkjet printers.
Recent consulting work has included large, expensive machinery ($250,000 - $1 million a piece); high volume consumer electronics shipped globally; large flat products shipped LTL; food packaging distribution in Europe; assessment of Sam's Club distribution system.
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