Construction, Building and Packaging Industry

A stagnating market on the one hand faced with rising raw material costs on the other - this is the conflicting situation facing today’s construction industry. Moreover, the market is demanding more and more for environmentally friendly, attractively priced, and innovative solutions – in other words for smart products and competitive processes. The on-going popularity of the DIY culture has brought about a shift in the end user spectrum, which has now opened out from the professional service providers to include DIY enthusiasts.

The packaging industry, which acts in the capacity of partner to a wide spectrum of different sectors and is predominantly active in expanding markets, is also currently shaped by growing demand for environmentally and technically sophisticated solutions. Its broad-based product spectrum is now expected to feature ever more cost-efficient, optically attractive and sales campaign-compatible solutions.

Challenges in maintaining the competitiveness:

• Globalization of production and supply chains
• Integration of sales, production, logistics and purchasing using adjusted supply chain management strategies and processes (SCM)
• Linking raw material-compatible production and logistics processes to a consumer goods-oriented end user market, for instance in the form of DIY stores
• High degree of delivery flexibility through short response times
• Permanent cost savings through the use of SCM and lean methods
• Customer-compliant supply processes (for trade and distribution companies) such as vendor managed inventory (VMI)
• Implementation of cost-efficient and green logistics and transport processes