Alpla, a global plastic packaging company, has recently opened Studio A, its packaging design centre. It is a space which will allow customers to follow and contribute to the complete development and design of plastic packaging: from the most creative phase to prototyping and actual production. The studio will take full advantage of additive manufacturing and Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) digital technologies to optimise time, materials and the environment.
At StudioA, aesthetic design is combined with functional design, marketing needs with sustainability, and production costs with product costs.
Companies that turn to StudioA can count on a mix of skills: a team of design experts and Alpla's production specialists, who are able to combine practicality, sustainability and technology in packaging, while at the same time meeting the most up-to-date and product-appropriate marketing requirements. Alpla expresses its closeness to the market by working hand in hand with its customers, who can see, control and contribute to the realisation of the project in real time. In particular, it is possible to verify in real time the feasibility and recyclability of a design, its optimisation and its possible inclusion in the competitive landscape. All this with significant time and cost savings.
The benefits of using the latest digital technologies include the ability to quickly and cost-effectively produce prototypes that accurately reflect the design thanks to additive manufacturing, to preview the product in virtual reality through goggles and, finally, to simulate the placement of the packaging on the supermarket shelf using augmented reality.
This new project is a natural extension of the application of the principles of Design for Recycling, which Alpla has long been committed to. A set of best practices to achieve the goals of circularity and, therefore, sustainability of packaging.
Tiziano Andreini, CEO of Alpla Italy, explained:
It is extremely important to be able to guarantee the recyclability of packaging from a circular economy perspective from the early stages of packaging design. Within StudioA, the synergy between the technical teams, the collaboration with the customer and the use of additive manufacturing technologies allow us to analyse from the outset the impact of a packaging choice, be it a bottle, a flacon or a container, in terms of design for recycling, while maintaining the functional and aesthetic aspects.
