From standardization and digital visibility to lightweighting and investment, the panel drilled into what it takes to keep packaging from becoming the weak link.
Source: Automotive Logistics livestream panel with Emily Uwemedimo (moderator), Adam Wiley (Honda), Rob Newing (Cummins), and Arun Modgil (Ckdpack).
Change management, visuals, and momentum
Asked for early lessons from Cummins’ EMEA rollout, Rob Newing said the wins come when waste reduction, recyclability, and efficiency are tackled end-to-end, then made visible. “In most cases, you’re going to see waste reduction and cost efficiency come down with it, at least when you start to look at your end-to-end process,” he said. He added that buy-in accelerates when teams can see the delta, not just read a spreadsheet. “Visualizing and having visual representation from you’ve taken it from this to this, and showing and demonstrating what you’ve achieved so that people see it visually is definitely growing momentum.”
That emphasis on visibility ran through the hour, including the hard reality that capacity, reverse flow, and dwell will decide whether programs stick. Honda’s Adam Wiley framed it bluntly: “Packaging is finite… everything is turning constantly like a bike wheel [that] never stops. So there are no breaks. If there’s a break in the packaging, there’s going to be a gap somewhere else.” Wiley said Honda’s mature returnable fleet now prioritizes operational stability, led by capacity planning and reverse-logistics execution so “the right quantity of packaging [is] at the right place at the right time.”
Standardization that still flexes
The audience pressed the panel on standardization as a prerequisite for scale. Newing called it “critical” but warned that it has to be earned through design discipline from new product introduction onward. “You’ve got to come up with that optimal kind of design that satisfies that entire supply chain. There’s going to be bits of winners and losers throughout that process, but you’re looking to find that sweet spot,” he said. Boundaries and rules prevent chaos, he added, but continuous improvement must stay open to evidence.
Wiley agreed, drawing a line between common footprints and tailored internals. “Not everything’s going to fit in a one-size-fits-all pack,” he said. The answer is a library of standard footprints with flexible dunnage. “Parts are getting more complicated, so the internals of the packaging can be vastly different, while the dimensions can be the same.” He also stressed data hygiene as a hidden pillar of efficiency. “The data behind packaging is really critical… if I physically have a pack that’s 45 by 48 but I show it as a 75 by 78, I’m not going to have nearly the cube efficiency that I need.”
From the supplier side, Ckdpack CEO Arun Modgil highlighted why standardization can be harder across borders and product types, especially for large sub-assemblies and EV components. “There are companies that require containers which are much bigger than the pooled containers,” he said, citing long-haul export programs where specialized racks and modular systems coexist.
EMEA vs. North America, and the regulatory tailwind
On regional differences, Newing pointed to the friction of scale and sovereignty in EMEA. “We’re operating across a lot more countries and languages… our main supply base is around 20 different countries, 18 different languages, customs declarations and stuff like that,” he said, noting legacy Euro-pallet footprints that are gradually giving way to modular plastics.
Wiley contrasted that with North America’s relative simplicity. “We may have it a little bit easier… we have three [countries], primarily the US, Canada and Mexico,” he said. He also flagged that environmental regulation is currently a stronger push in Europe than in the US, which “can allow us to be a little bit more efficient with our packaging” in some cases.
Even so, Cummins is using Europe’s compliance wave as a business-case ally rather than a burden. “We’ve actually used that to our advantage,” Newing said of regulatory drivers. Where benefits like future-proofing can be hard to quantify at launch, “we have to be in that space for regulatory compliance,” which removes ambiguity and accelerates reuse adoption.
Lightweighting, racks, and the cost of mass
Lightweighting came up as both a cost and a carbon lever. “It’s about taking weight out, certainly for the faster returnables, but also having them stackable so you need the level of strength and durability to survive the supply chain journeys,” Newing said. Strip unneeded steel, and the same load can be moved with fewer trucks or with better fuel efficiency. “The weight of the packaging has no value to transport. It’s just a byproduct of the design.”
Modgil offered a concrete example from glass logistics: “We developed a returnable glass rack system… a 100-kilogram rack that can carry 2,000 kilograms of glass.” The expandable rack eliminated 32 different wooden crate sizes for one OEM, he said, and the team applies similar design logic to heavy engine components, targeting packaging that is “15 times less than the gross weight it is carrying.”
Tracking gaps, GPS pilots, and KPI discipline
Despite advances, Wiley believes reverse-flow tech still lags inbound parts visibility. “That’s where we could look at the reverse logistics side and say maybe it’s fallen behind a little bit,” he said. RFID, Bluetooth and GPS are improving quickly, but integration and reliability have been uneven. A pragmatic approach, he suggested, is to tag a small, representative slice of the fleet: “You may have a whole packaging fleet out there of thousands of packs. You track 2% of those with GPS trackers. You’re going to have 100% visibility to how your fleet is actually handled within the supply chain.”
He coupled that with simple, relentless metrics. “A plan versus actual… if [actual] falls below, you better have mitigation plans in place to correct it,” Wiley said. When exceptions happen, pre-approved backup packaging and expedites keep production running while the fleet is rebalanced.
Investment reality and service models that remove the capex fear
One attendee asked whether the sector is investing enough. Newing didn’t hesitate: “Short answer, no.” He framed the path as prove-and-scale. “Prove a concept out, demonstrate its value, and then it will grow,” he said, noting that robust financial controls have helped Cummins focus resources where business cases are strongest.
Modgil described a service model designed to remove capex barriers for long-distance programs. “We are not asking our customers to invest in returnable packaging anymore,” he said of certain routes. Ckdpack designs, tests, supplies, and tracks fleets, then charges “on a per-component basis.” That shifts fleet-size risk and return-loop performance to the provider while giving OEMs global tracking via Ckdpack’s portal. “If you don’t maintain it and it’s efficiently deployed, that becomes a very big issue,” he cautioned, pointing to common failure modes like buying the cheapest packaging and then under-filling trucks and containers.
The road ahead: automation and real-time location
Looking forward, Newing sees digital precision changing expectations. “We’re at a point now where the technology is already there where we could tell you where the component is in a container, within a truck, within a square meter on the globe,” he said. Real-time visibility coupled with returnables “is a real game changer.”
For Honda, packaging will become an automation conduit. “You don’t want people to be able to touch parts, you just want it to flow seamlessly,” Wiley said. That requires packaging to integrate with robotic handling and plant systems by design, not as an afterthought.
Modgil echoed the trend from the supplier vantage point. “The robots are touching the packaging. Humans do not have any interference at all on it,” he said, adding that manufacturing tech is making complex, standardized solutions more affordable. His pitch to hesitant exporters: “Don’t be scared if you’re shipping parts longer distances that the returnable packaging cannot be cost effective. It is very cost effective if you just look through the business cases where we design something properly.”
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Rick LeBlanc, EMBA, is the founder and editor of Reusable Packaging News (subscribe to the free newsletter) and editor of Western Pallet Magazine. A supply chain journalist with more than 30 years of experience, he specializes in pallets, reusable packaging, material handling and related operations. Rick is co-author of Pallets: A North American Perspective and Pallets & Progress: A Collected History of Pallets and Palletized Handling 1922–1945. He is also an advisory board member of the Virginia Tech Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design. Read Rick’s full bio.
