Standardization of Packaging Materials for Various Products and Cost Optimization in Packaging

Abstract

This project is related to the standardization of the packaging of variable-size products, which belongs to base, headboard, marquise and cupboard (nightstand) product categories, for a bed products company. The company cares importance to special size demands of their customers and produces products in a wide range of sizes. This causes complexity in the stock-tracking of cardboard plates, which are the most important packaging materials in the packaging process, and high waste of cardboards. Therefore, this study aims to improve the packaging system of the company and to reduce the packaging costs by decreasing the amount of waste related to the materials used for packaging. The main objective of the study is to create a standardized packaging plan by considering all product sizes the company has produced in the last three years in the product categories of base, headboard, marquise and cupboard. To achieve this goal, after the completion of literature search, forecasts for the next year’s sales were done, and a mathematical model that has two conflicting objectives was formulated. Then, the mathematical model was solved by using IBM ILOG CPLEX program for each product category and optimal package sizes were determined. A useful Decision Support System (DSS) which enables to prepare weekly packaging plans that reduce the extra packaging costs and the amount of waste has been created at the end of the project.