By Eduardo Molina and J. Kate Bridgeman

As part of renovations to the Corrugated Packaging Materials Laboratory at the Brooks Center this past summer, the lab was painted to match the new Virginia Tech brand and a new system for cleaning and organization was implemented.

A key part of the lab renovations was the employment of lean philosophy across all operations. With the help of two undergraduate packaging systems and design summer interns, Jack Cook (pictured below) and Jhonny Fuentes, the laboratory now follows a 5S (sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain) methodology for a visual workplace, providing the methods and capabilities for sustaining a full lean transformation in operations. A Kanban system was put in place to control the day-to-day workflow of testing projects, simplifying scheduling and tracking.

The driving force behind the transformation was to certify the laboratory as an official IKEA testing center for corrugated board packaging materials. The certification was obtained this past summer after a rigorous yearlong process of validating all the testing procedures, internal processes, and visits from IKEA engineers from China and other locations. We are currently the only laboratory in North America certified to conduct testing to approve corrugated fiberboard producers to sell to IKEA. This new recognition lets the Corrugated Packaging Materials Lab stand out and become a reference for testing in the United States and abroad.

As part of the revamped operations, a group of packaging interns is currently being trained to conduct testing in the near future. Working in the lab will provide them valuable experience in the corrugated industry and real-world expertise inside a testing laboratory, furthering the department’s experiential learning opportunities.