Watch: Magna International's Bridget Grewal on returnable packaging, phytosanitary risks and advanced tracking
Bridget Grewal, director, packaging continuous improvement at Magna International, discusses circularity in packaging, different methods of tracking shipments and reducing phytosanitary risks in the supply chain.
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The world of packaging is more complicated than ever before, with ESG compliance, phytosanitary risks and cost reduction expectations playing an important part in logistics strategies. Speaking on the Red Sofa at Automotive Logistics and Supply Chain Global, Bridget Grewal, director, packaging continuous improvement at Magna International, detailed the processes that have been put in place to address key areas of improvement for the company's packaging processes.
Compliance and phytosanitary risks
Grewal expanded on her presentation at the event, which touched on how phytosanitary incidents can cause hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, and even stop shipments completely. She went into detail about what Magna International has done to mitigate this risk. "It was a very complicated process," she said. "We had failures coming in from Europe and from Mexico, and we realised that we needed to train internally our material handlers so we could have their eyes examine the wood as it came into the plant and as it came out of the plant."
She added that there were also failures coming from the company's engineering group and its programme management group due to equipment being built overseas, and training was also required there. Furthermore, she explained how Magna International went down to its supply base to ensure ISPM15 standards were being adhered to, which also involved some level of training and communication with the supply base.
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Staying on top of new regulations in different parts of the world is also an integral part of managing packaging, Grewal identified, pointing towards the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) that comes into effect at the end of this year as an example of this. "We need to pay attention to what's going on not only in the United States but what's going on around the world," she added.
Advanced tracking
Tracking shipments is another incredibly important consideration in logistics today, with visibility a top priority for customers and to mitigate risks. Grewal spoke about the industry relying on barcodes, but beginning to look into sensor technology, which has seen the barriers to entry from a cost perspective reduced in recent years. "You have to look at your fleet size and you have to evaluate what it is and what data you want to have," she shared.
Grewal spoke through some different scenarios where different technologies, from BLE to RFID to GPS, could be effectively used for tracking. "All of them are getting in range financially, so all of those solutions would be beneficial to anyone that's using returnable containers, because attrition is our biggest enemy and using sensor technology is going to reduce that," she said.
Returnable packaging
Speaking about Magna International's use of expendable packaging for international shipments, Grewal admits that this practise is "not cost-effective" because of the end-of-life costs associated with disposing of it or recycling it. "Having a technology for returnable containers would benefit us from two ways; one is that we don't have to reinvest in that expandable packaging, but also when we dispose of that packaging we don't have to incur that cost," Grewal noted.
