The need for more precise tracking of goods is gaining increasing importance. Producers need to fight forgery and product theft, they have highly sophisticated supply chains and they want to provide consumer-oriented micro- marketing. These trends create new challenges for accurately tracing goods and packaging. Tackling this challenge, Mondi Industrial Bags now offers a solution with a unique code on each bag: the SmartID Bag.
On June 7, the SmartID Bag was presented at the Austrian packaging conference ‘impackt 2013’. So how does this work? And how does each part of the supply chain benefit? “It’s a great new concept for industrial bags,” enthuses Claudio Fedalto, sales and marketing director of Mondi Industrial Bags. “Each bag gets its own unique code, printed by Mondi, which allows the bag to be identified throughout the value chain — all the way to the consumer,” he explains. “This opens a wealth of information and opportunities!” Fedalto adds. The unique code on each SmartID Bag allows each party along the value chain – from the filler and the distributor to the end user – to upload and access predefined information stored in a database that is related to that code. To access this information the code is simply scanned with a smartphone.
“The concept is very flexible,” says Christian Anselmi CEO of Antevorte, the technical project partner. “The sky is the limit! How much information is stored in the database and how much data is made available through the code on the SmartID Bag is entirely up to the customer,” he explains. “It’s easy to set up and the online app provides the information stipulated by the customer,” Anselmi states.
Mondi has developed a range of services that can be offered to fillers and other stakeholders further down the value chain so that all parties can benefit from this solution.
AUTHENTICATION
Benefiting from the value of a strong brand, product forgery has become an increasing problem. The SmartID Bag can prove to the buyer that the content of the bag is genuine and corresponds to the actual quality sold.
TRACEABILITY
Some sectors, such as the pharmaceutical industry, are already required to track all of their products through the production line. The SmartID Bag allows this concept to be extended to other industries — tracing packaging and components of all filling goods. This tracking can be done both backwards and forward in a monitored supply chain. It can be in response to legal requirements for certain filling goods or simply to give the filler tight control over their products and components.
SUPPLY CHAIN OPTIMIZATION
Consumers’ needs are moving faster and faster, which requires suppliers to be highly flexible and reactive. With the SmartID Bag products can be monitored along the value chain, for example monitoring of stock volumes at the point of sale. This allows users to immediately react to temporary or regional differences in sales by meeting the demands of customers.
TARGETED MARKETING
Information is key and additional transparency helps suppliers provide exactly the products a customer needs. To fulfil this they need to know more about the customers. SmartID Bag can provide more detailed data on the buyer for micro marketing. With this knowledge the offer can be adapted to the customer and present various types of additional information when the code is scanned, for example suggest complementary products, inform on regional campaigns, adapt language support, videos, etc. It’s a great possibility to get fillers and distributors closer to the customer and build up direct communication.
CUSTOMER LOYALTY
SmartID Bag can also offer added value to increase customer loyalty, for example promotions for regular buyers recognized via smartphone. This added value can be provided by the filler or distribution channels, for example in do-it-yourself markets.