Does this questioning imply that the R&D activities and patents filed by machine manufacturers are currently insufficient?
“ In my opinion, innovation among many French OEMs is too focused and short-sighted, given the economic context in which we operate and the societal challenges we face ,” explains Pierre Chevalier, founder of NEXO Tech. “ It is centered on technology, primarily driven by major players in the industrial and robotics sectors, and often discontinuous, pushed by regulatory constraints. But above all, it is isolated: each company innovates in its own corner, focusing on its core business, whereas packaging is an inherently systemic and cross-functional discipline. All these characteristics contribute to limiting, over time, the innovation potential of our manufacturers. ”
New avenues, more in line with contemporary expectations, deserve to be explored. Some are still unknown or rarely considered by industry players, undoubtedly hampered by deeply ingrained habits. Among these alternatives are frugal innovation, co-creation, and questioning traditional business models.
Nurturing innovation potential also means adopting a different perspective: strengthening a skill vital to the company's long-term viability rather than focusing exclusively on developing a new product. " Everything moves so fast today that the path or process is almost more important than the result. Every action taken within the framework of innovation will shift the environment in which it unfolds, generating new constraints as well as new opportunities. Our OEMs must be able to keep pace with the movements of their ecosystem, attract and engage younger and more international teams, if they want to contribute to solving environmental and societal problems. "
This raises several fundamental questions:
- Have we, as stakeholders in the industry (manufacturers, users, consumers), taken the time to define together the problems we truly want to solve?
- What barriers have we ourselves put in place regarding innovation, and which could collaboration help to overcome?
- What skills need to be acquired to connect individual innovation efforts to a more systemic view of the entire process (primary, secondary, tertiary)?
By collectively addressing these challenges, packaging machinery manufacturers—a crucial link between packaging producers and manufacturers—can play a key role in the sustainable redefinition of the packaging function. Some have already begun this transformation; it is now up to their peers to follow suit.
