The times of blockbuster production in which high volume
packing machines were predominant are long gone. Customer
specific packaging for each country leads to a low volume/
high mix production, which is accompanied by an increasing
need of small lot sizes. Besides a shift from high performance
packaging machines to flexible machines, a reorganization of
production concepts is needed. Lean manufacturing methods
help by reducing change-over times, standardizing work flows
and increasing machine availabilities. Finally, this is essential
to achieve operational excellence in packaging, even for very
small lot-sizes.