A Study of Corrugated Shelf-Ready Packaging (SRP) Appropriate to Colgate Palmolive Products

At the time of this study, each time a customer in Europe requested that Colgate Palmolive (CP) implement a Shelf Ready Packaging (SRP) solution for a product, CP did not have the data and tools necessary to weigh the impact of the request. Since most retail stores in Europe use a high level of SRP, it was important for Colgate Palmolive to master this type of packaging. The challenge of this thesis project was to address this situation by developing a set of practical guidelines for use by CP packaging engineers when developing SRP packaging solutions that met retailers\u27 requirements and addressed CP\u27s manufacturing constraints To do this, it was first necessary to define the functional requirements of Shelf-Ready Packaging according to manufacturers and retailers in Europe. Next, existing SRP concepts used by Colgate Palmolive (CP) in Europe were mapped and benchmarked with the competition. The effectiveness of CP\u27s use of SRP for selected SKUs in specific categories was then assessed using the Score Cards Assessment Tool (version 10) issued by ECR Europe in January 2007. The best calibration, providing the largest range of percentage of adherence to SRP, was recommended and applied in the rest of the study. To build up a complete and useful database of SRP information, actual case studies involving five existing SRP concepts used by CP in Europe were conducted. Three major corrugate suppliers in Europe were each asked to rethink the concepts and to present their ideas for improvement and/or innovation. For each new proposal, an SRP card was created to easily identify its advantages and drawbacks and to document the technical recommendations. Finally, where possible, industrials trials for the more relevant proposals were conducted to determine the readiness of the proposed solutions for immediate implementation. The knowledge gained from the research conducted and the case studies resulted in the creation of a practical manufacturing SRP bundle book, containing SRP Cards and Best Practice Guidelines, to be used by CP packaging engineers in future SRP development efforts