This master thesis aims to enhance knowledge on how to contribute to an increased
sustainability in transport packaging. Five main categories gathering improvement strategy
opportunities are developed and illustrated in an Ishikawa diagram. These categories are
Process, People, Environment, Unitisation and Material.
Empirical data has been collected at company X, both at its headquarters in Gothenburg, and
during a one-week visit to its International Distribution Centre in Poland, where interviews to
shop floor operators, observations at the packing station, and experiments of different
transport packaging alternatives have been carried out.
Four initiatives have been undertaken during this study. (1) The layout at the packing area
was redesigned to make the material flow more direct and the packing process lean. (2) A
guidebook for standardizing operators’ packing methods has been created. (3) Knowledge has
been gained from experiments to define best load units across the supply chain. (4) The most
valuable packaging materials have been figured out to make a return flow of packaging
material possible. This would reduce raw material consumption as well as reduce the
procurement costs of packaging materials.
Due to the limitation that only one company has been examined deeply in this master thesis,
the result of the study is mainly a good support to the case company focused to work towards
sustainable transport packaging. However, the categories of improvement strategy
opportunities and the method used in this master thesis can still be a reference to other
manufacturing companies in industry.