40 years: episode 8

40 years of GALIA packaging

Since the creation of GALIA, packaging has been the subject of joint work: thus, a first recommendation concerning pallets and boxes was published in 1986.

📌 Standard packaging

Rapidly, the industry expressed a need for returnable packaging, which resulted in the definition of a range of plastic boxes. This was followed by packaging standards for sheet metal coils and slits, packaging for tires, and in 1999, an innovative standard for foldable plastic boxes as well as a foldable plastic pallet-box, then a metal sheet container, etc.
Today, these solutions are still part of the “landscape” in our factories.

📌 Standardized packaging management

No packaging, no supply chain! It was still necessary to propose management and information exchange methods allowing the supply chain partners to manage them efficiently. This was done through work at Odette level, concerning the operating modes and the structuring of EDI messages, from the end of the 90s.

Towards the middle of the years 2010, new work went further in terms of managing empty packaging, in relation with the constraints of transporting empty packaging, up to Version 5.3 of AVIEXP in 2020, enabling the automation of the management of packaging accessories (Cover, pallet, empty dunnage box, etc.) in EDI messages.

📌 New societal challenges

Fortunately, the automotive industry has implemented a strategy of reusable packaging (which all other industries envy us). This industrial, pragmatic and economical approach has made it possible to avoid mountains of waste in factories.

But the devil is in the details. It was therefore necessary to continue working on good technical practices limiting waste or promoting the end of life of packaging.

To date, the GALIA community is heavily involved in anticipating new regulatory constraints on the environment that impact the entire life cycle of packaging: eco-design of packaging, regulatory certification files, reuse targets, Extended Producer Responsibility, the second life of packaging or end-of-life waste management. In this 40^th year of GALIA, a new recommendation has just been published to identify good (and not so good) practices for the Circular Economy of packaging: EMB20.