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The
Work
Packaging encompasses numerous disciplines from science and engineering to marketing and graphic arts. It therefore offers opportunities for professionals from all these diverse areas.
Broadly, the areas of work cover design, manufacture and marketing. While each is a distinct area of specialization, they are so closely interlinked that professionals from one area must be knowledgeable about the working of the other two.
DESIGN
Packaging technologists design packages so that they protect the product until the point of sale, are attractive, easy to handle, easy to dispose of as well as recycle, and at the same time, are economically priced.
Designing is an important aspect of packaging, not only for consumer products but also for industrial items and bulk goods. Packaging technologists working on design have to be knowledgeable about the physical properties of the material being used, the manufacturing process, the machinery being used and the scale of operations.
MANUFACTURE
The packaging material is first produced keeping in mind the product to be packaged. Various kinds of materials may be tested if it is a new product. There are also different kinds of packages for a single product depending on consumer, market and quantity.
Packaging technologists working in the manufacturing field are engineers who can handle all these processes and on the package itself, supervising its production and handling quality control and testing for durability and other variant factors.
The process of packaging and filling using appropriate machinery, and ensuring that the packaging material works effectively, is also handled by packaging technologists. Another area in manufacturing is the development work that technologists may be called upon to do, adapting various materials for different uses in packaging.
MARKETING
Those in marketing have to sell packaging materials or machinery for manufacturing the requisite
material or packing the product. They must, therefore, know how the product will be used by the packager, the properties of the product, and the technology and chemistry of the material used for packing it, as well as the different kinds of printing, coloring inks, labels, etc.
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