What is Contract Packaging Software?
Modern contract packagers are increasingly investing in digital solutions to optimize their operations, improve traceability, and meet consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand expectations.
Contract packaging software is any digital solution that is built to manage production, labor, and inventory for contract packagers, contract manufacturers, and value-added third-party logistics providers. Contract packaging software helps co-packers easily manage their complex workflows and production schedules for faster execution, better order fulfillment and greater customer satisfaction.
What Are the Critical Capabilities of Contract Packaging Software?
Many traditional software providers (e.g., MES, WMS, ERP) claim to be a fit for contract packaging companies, but are inadequate in addressing the needs and challenges facing co-packers.
Co-pack production floors are complex and dynamic, with a wide range of components, bills of materials (BOMs), and customers being handled every day. Purpose-built contract packaging software should enable users to easily manage and handle these complexities.
Strong co-pack management software also should be purpose-built to support capabilities such as:
- Production scheduling – Easily manage your production calendar in a visual, drag-and-drop interface.
- Order management – Use real-time dashboards to track production as it happens.
- Labor management – Effectively schedule, allocate, and optimize labor resources.
- Inventory management – Easily track your in-transit and on-hand inventory needed for orders.
- Quality control – Digitally track and enforce quality-related processes.
- Reporting – Quickly export and visualize production data.
Learn why traditional software such as ERP systems are often a poor fit for co-pack environments.
What Co-Pack Services does Contract Packaging Software Assist With?
Co-packers are specialists in providing packaging and related services for their brand customers. Purpose-built software for contract packagers is able to streamline workflows for the vast array of services that co-packers provide, such as:
- Gift Packing – Gift packing is a major part of the FMCG industry for Christmas, Easter and other special events.
- Hand Packing/Re-Work – Where machine production is not feasible, hand packing by skilled experienced teams is the most efficient answer.
- Kitting, Collation & Assembly – These processes involve collating products/components, for example engineering parts or toy kits, into a single unit for distribution.
- Netting/Clip-Stripping – Netting provides a low-cost way of collating and displaying products, from bird food to beach toys.
- Rectification/QC – Through these processes, faulty products are subjected to quality control checks to examine for defects against agreed benchmark standards or to provide a statistical number of rejects.
Learn more about the wide range of co-pack services that can be optimized through contract packaging software.
What Challenges Does Contract Packaging Software Solve?
Many co-pack businesses begin managing their production with manual, paper-based processes, spreadsheets, or homegrown IT systems. As the business grows and customer demands build, these methods struggle to continue meeting their needs. Commonly encountered problems include:
- Scattered information
- Inaccurate data
- Wasted personnel hours
- Higher scrap rates and reduced quality
- Missed deadlines
- Unhappy customers
Further, when these businesses rely on outdated software and clunky spreadsheets to manage their business, they have trouble maintaining their rate of expansion and growth. Co-pack compatible software should be able to scale easily as the business grows.
Contract packaging solutions are built from the ground up to address the challenges that co-packers face every day in scheduling, production, quality, and more.
Labor costs and labor management are also a critical challenge for contract packaging companies. Read how co-pack software can optimize labor management.
Read more: The Top 5 Biggest Pains for Co-Packers – and How Software Solves Them
What’s Your Shop Floor Visibility Score?
How easily can you collect data about your co-pack production and business? Take our quick Data Visibility quiz to see where you stand.
What are the Benefits of Contract Packaging Software?
Contract packaging software offers a wide range of production and business-related benefits over other co-pack management alternatives, including:
- Real-time visibility and control over production, inventory, and labor, producing data on active job performance and profitability.
- Increased quality and service levels through paperless control, tracking and reporting on quality inspections and batch records.
- Enhanced agility and responsiveness to changing demand and supply without losing money from safety stock or material obsolescence.
- Digitally tracked inventory and labor management with dynamic production planning and scheduling connected to actual work orders.
These tools help reduce waste, improve quality, and ensure accurate order fulfillment—especially when managing high-mix, low-volume work typical in contract packaging.
Learn How to Choose the Best Contract Packaging Software For You
Choosing the right software for your contract packaging operation can feel overwhelming. Contract packaging is a complex, dynamic business, in which orders can change multiple times a day, exposing risks for miscommunications, delays, inventory shortages, and more. It is critical to choose co-pack management software that is purpose-built to effectively manage ever-changing schedules, production statuses and workflows.
We created a guide specifically to help co-packers navigate the software landscape and select the right solution for their needs.
In this guide you’ll learn:
- How to choose the right contract packaging software
- Why traditional software systems are ill-equipped to meet the needs of contract packagers
- A comprehensive checklist of co-pack software capabilities
Download our free guide today.
