Looking beyond today's needs for caps and closures and to the future of the industry is key to developing strategies to implement now, says Rev Anbalagan from Berry Global Group Inc.
"The first 50 years, I believe, in the plastics industry where caps and closures are a part of, was the golden period," Anbalagan said. "We had unlimited consumerism and growth and continued expansion and globalization.
"We will continue to grow," she added during a presentation for Plastics Caps + Closures: A Global Online Event from Plastics News on Sept. 18.
Anbalagan cited trends that predict a positive outlook in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care and household products end markets. Packaging points to a positive annualized growth ranging from 3.2 percent to 7.1 percent.
The industry drivers over the last 50 years were heavily influenced by the rise of consumerism, Anbalagan said, adding that the next 50 years will continue to have a high impact by consumerism and the need for instant gratifications but is affected by the emerging economies.
"I know we have growth opportunities in the emerging markets," Anbalagan said. "However, we have to look at how local regulations or regional regulations are going to impact us doing business."
The caps and closure industry relies on commodity materials and in the past was more focused on globalization and offshoring. Anbalagan sees the industry starting to focus more on regional and local markets, which might affect the supply chain.
Other main industry drivers of 50 years ago included low-cost raw material availability, the mass production of plastic alternatives and the increase of e-commerce innovation.
In the future, Anbalagan predicts other drivers to be from the oil and gas sustainability and circularity of bio-based plastics, regulations around plastic's end of life and the continued e-commerce growth but through artificial intelligence and automation.
Anbalagan focused on three strategies that help the industry reach its goals and move toward circularity — all of them strategies Berry already incorporates within the company that it says are influencing decisions.
The first strategy is to eliminate waste through a Lean Six Sigma method, which specifically affects microeconomic factors in a positive way: having more control over cost savings, customer satisfaction, an increase in efficiency, employee engagement, organizational agility and improved quality.
"Lean Six Sigma is giving the employees of an organization this learning growth mindset and always wanting to improve just a little bit on any given thing," Anbalagan said. "That continuous improvement culture is through Lean Six Sigma."
The second strategy is to unite industry leaders and proactively win macroeconomic factors. Legislation talks and expanded producer responsibility (EPR) conversations must be ahead of the game and already on a similar page as an industry.
"The more collective we are and put our brains together, we can come up with better science-based solutions," Anbalagan said.
The last strategy discussed was one of the more challenging to achieve: to cultivate the next generation of leaders. Anbalagan emphasized the importance of adapting to other generations and being supportive, that companies should make sure that they are welcoming to the five types of generations within the industry.
For the caps and closure industry to continue to grow, the foundation and culture must be right and balanced.