Checksheets and courses

This course introduces incoming students to the ins and outs of the Packaging program. It provides a wealth of information to help take advantage of the resources available across the university and the department. It provides the necessary skills to successfully write laboratory reports, deliver effective presentations, and develop a professional identity focused on the student’s success in the packaging field.

This course takes students throughout the whole packaging development process. Students learn to design packaging using Computer-Aided Design tools. Packaging solutions are developed for different products, followed by the creation of transportation packaging, including container and trailer optimization. Students also learn the basics of artwork development and the production of high quality, attractive renders. All of the knowledge is put in practice in a semester-long project.

This course is an introduction to the diverse and fascinating world of packaging.  Students learn about the packaging industry as well as careers in packaging. The major packaging types and materials are investigated along with packaging decoration and distribution hazards.  The course includes a hands-on lab and gives students the opportunity work with packaging design software and computer aided manufacturing equipment to create unique prototypes.

This course is for students to familiarize themselves with design fundamentals. It provides students with a solid foundation in packaging design, and explores creating design projects using traditional and digital tools such as Adobe software. Students will learn to build compositional skills using color, typography, and layout in packaging. There are packaging projects that allow students to showcase what they have learned throughout the course. 

Students in this class are learning systematic packaging design through industry sponsored projects. The course covers soft skills such as report writing, professional presentations among technical skills such as experimental design, statistical analysis, and selection of testing standards. The student projects are funded by industry and focus on reducing cost, eliminating damages, investigating fundamental interactions, or increasing the sustainability of a packaging system.

This course explores the discipline of packaging design through fundamental design theories, practices, and Adobe software. The goal is to provide students with advanced design knowledge and analyze the effectiveness of the design. The course explores constructing innovative design projects using traditional and digital methods. Students will explore the challenges of adapting braille, illustration and multilingual approaches in packaging.  This is a portfolio building class.

This class is designed for sophomore or junior who is starting the packaging major courses. One of major packaging materials is a paper-based material including corrugated. Paper, paperboard, and corrugates are most commonly used for protecting products, design for marketing and communication with customers, shipping for e-commerce, storage, and even distribution. In this course, students will learn about their properties, manufacturing process, structure, and function in a variety of packaging systems. After completion of this course, students are able to develop their career in various industries as a pure packaging professional.

Students in this course learn about how product is moved in the global supply chain. Students first learn about the transportation modes most utilized. We learn about material handling equipment and how it interacts with packaging. Students learn how to optimize a warehouse by learning its principles of operation. 

This class studies the interaction between packaging solutions and the machinery required to run them in production lines. Students learn to determine the type of equipment required to form a package, fill it with the product and seal it, analyze the production rate and find alternatives to increase the line speed. In the packaging development workflow, this class focuses on the work after the package has been designed and manufactured, and now the product needs to go into it in the most efficient way.

This class introduces students to the field of supply chain and the role packaging plays in it. From the perspective of the Consumer-Packaged Goods industry, students learn to calculate optimal inventory levels, forecasting, and material requirement planning. The class covers important topics such as procurement and the management of returnable packaging containers.

Plastics are crucial components in the packaging world. The majority of consumer products are protected by many plastic polymers. This 3-credit course provides students with fundamental backgrounds in the views of material property, functions, manufacturing process, and its applications for products.  The plastic-based packaging products include plastic bottles, bags, and parts for many rigid and flexible packaging systems. This course is offered in both summer and the fall semester. The summer session is designed for students who need to take this course remotely due to their co-op/internship or coursework schedule adjustment. 

The course teaches the principles of protective packaging design for goods moving through the global supply chain. Students in the class learn about principles of vibration, shock, compression and atmospheric conditions, learn about systematic packaging and cushioning design and laboratory evaluations. 

The Senior Practicum is a “capstone” course which allows students to utilize and extend the skills they learn in the Packaging Systems and Design curriculum.  Students work in groups to develop and produce new of redesigned packaging solutions for products provide by consumer products companies.  Students invent new packaging structures and conduct testing to ensure that the structures pass industry-standard testing protocols.  Also, solutions include graphics and the consumer experience.  Industry professionals and SBIO faculty members meet with students periodically to help guide the process and overcome issues.  SBIO 4054 is completed by students in the last semester of the Packaging Systems and Design curriculum.

This course is purely designed for students who finished basic packaging courses and are ready for packaging applications. Food and health care industry is the largest stakeholder in packaging industries. It includes food, cosmetics, and medical products. To secure the quality and safety of products, highly developed packaging technologies have been developed and adopted in industry. For example, smart packaging includes active packaging and intelligent packaging systems such as antimicrobial packaging, aseptic packaging, RFID microchip in packaging, freshness indicator, etc.  In this course, students will learn about both traditional and modern food packaging processes and technologies. After completion of this course, students are able to use the knowledge of packaging principles for applications in the largest industry in the world. 

The course teaches principles of industrial packaging systems including pallets, unit loads, drums, plastic containers among other items. Students learn how to create packaging specifications, systematically design unit loads to reduce cost and evaluate and increase the stability of unitized products.