Background:

Duni Group delivers innovative table setting concepts, creative packaging and take-away solutions to both professionals and consumers. All products are designed to create a sustainable good food mood. The products decades of specialization in materials and design. The products are available in over 40 markets worldwide. Duni Group's head office is located in Malmö and it has production facilities in Sweden, Germany, Poland, New Zealand and Thailand.

A major part of Duni's products are manufactured and packaged in Asia. The size of packages is determined by how many products are to be accommodated in each box and based on this, the size of the package is optimized. The packages are then manually packed box by box in containers. Usually, the containers are shipped to Europe by boat and transported from the ports by trucks to one of Duni’s warehouses. The containers are unloaded and the goods are packed manually onto Euro pallets.

This packaging selection approach results in many different sizes of packaging that often cannot be packed optimally on Euro pallets. Currently, Duni does not calculate necessary box strength. As a result, many packages are oversized.

Project:

The purpose of this master thesis project is to develop a model for packaging selection, which considers the impact of packaging on logistics all the way from manufacturing and to the end customers. The model should ensure that the strength of the packages is adapted to the load.

The project will most likely include:

• An analysis of the current packaging solution and its impact on logistics performance where costs and the environmental impact is highlighted.
• Development of a packaging selection model, which considers box strength and logistics impact where the size of packaging is emphasised. A specific analysis related to packaging size is the possible effects of modularization.

The scope of the project will be limited to the supply of a limited number of products. This will be discussed in the beginning of the thesis.

Contact:

For more information, please contact Henrik Pålsson, henrik.palsson@plog.lth.se