ATLANTA—Georgia-Pacific announcedservice extensions of its Packaging Systems Optimization (PSO) Program tonon-customers. The PSO program is designed to help companies achieve greaterprofitability and sustainability by identifying packaging supply chain inefficiencies.
Georgia-Pacific has identified over$180 million in annual savings for customers since 2002. The newly announcedservice extension will now enable eligibility of non-customers to engage in PSOassessments to gain greater insight into how to optimize packaging supplychains.
"The PSO service extension isa direct response to increased demand from companies interested in learningmore about how to achieve greater sustainability, as well as costsavings," says Brian Reilly, Senior Director, Innovation Institute atGeorgia-Pacific. "We are proud of the program results thus far and lookforward to helping the extended packaging community benefit from its successes.In the long term, it's really about extending our knowledge and showingcompanies that profitability and sustainability are not mutuallyexclusive."
The PSO program identifies distinctopportunities for packaging supply chain cost-savings and how even the smallestchanges can generate significant results. Additionally, as Georgia-Pacific hasbeen a part of Wal-Mart's Packaging Sustainability Value Network (SVN) sinceits inception, PSO can support packaging scorecard goals.
"Companies should not waituntil 2012 to achieve sustainability and profitability goals," explainsReilly. "PSO can help drive results now to meet both internal and externalpackaging demands."
The program comprises a rigorous,five-step process, wherein a team of packaging engineers analyze a company'sentire packaging supply chain, focusing on areas including package design,material optimization, shelf impact and SKU consolidation, as well as lineproductivity, material handling and distribution. After three weeks, the PSOteam delivers a detailed report which clearly outlines areas wherecost-savings, profitability and sustainability can be mutually achieved.
