Talking with Tomorrow’s Packaging Innovators

Earlier this month, Viking Packaging President and CEO Richard Croce had the opportunity to speak to Packaging Engineering students at Rutgers University School of Engineering. Packaging is a $900+ billion industry that continues to grow, employing more people globally than any other business. The Rutgers program is the nation’s only packaging program in an engineering school, preparing future packaging leaders and innovators.

Rich discussed the role packaging engineering plays at the Viking family of companies, from project planning and design to production quality assurance and continuous improvement.

For example, packaging engineering principles are critical to Viking’s Check-A-Box quality process, ensuring that no defects pass on to the next stage and that customer specification and expectations are clearly understood.

The students also were given some insight into the importance of:

• Waste reduction
• Cost control
• Goal setting
• Organizational-wide improvement
• Vertical integration across the region, including stable sourcing and distribution

But, most importantly, Rich noted the key role of Viking’s core values:

• Communication
• Integrity
• Accountability
• Continuous improvement
• Fun
• Caring for each other

Viking doesn’t sell boxes—we solve problems through packaging. Innovation and packaging engineering are vital to the global economy and Viking is happy to support the future of packaging solutions.