5 packaging risks nobody logs

Open almost any project risk register and you will find the same lines: supplier may deliver late, budget may be exceeded, resources may be short. They are real risks, and they are logged because they have an obvious owner.

The risks that cause the most damage on packaging projects are different. They sit in the gaps between product engineering, purchasing, quality, logistics and the plant. Each department sees part of the risk, and none of them sees all of it. So it never makes it onto the register, and it shows up later as a delay, a cost overrun or a recall.

This is not just our impression. Research on packaging logistics at Lund University maps how the packaging system interacts with logistics processes all along the supply chain, and offers those interactions as a way to bridge the gap between logisticians and packaging engineers.^[1] When something touches that many processes and teams, its risks are easy to lose between them.

Below are five of these risks. For each one we describe how it usually appears on real projects, what the research says, and one line you can paste into your own register.

1. Packaging starts after the product is frozen

How it shows up. The product team spends months on design. Packaging is invited when the drawings are released. By then, the product's size, shape, fragile points and assembly state are fixed, and the packaging team has to protect whatever it receives. Options that would have been cheap early, such as a small change to the product to make it easier to pack, are now expensive or impossible.

What the research says. Caroline Bramklev's work at Lund University surveyed companies in the mechanical, pharmaceutical and food industries and found a clear dependency between product development and packaging development across all three areas.^[3][4] Her later paper in Packaging Technology and Science notes that when a package is needed, it is seldom considered during the actual development of the product, and proposes a package development process that runs alongside product development instead of after it.^[2]

Register line. Packaging work starts after the product design is fixed → few design options left → higher packaging cost and late launch. Trigger: packaging is not on the project kickoff invite list.

2. The label is treated as artwork, not as a risk

How it shows up. Label and artwork changes move fast near launch: a new market, a recipe tweak, a translation, a regulatory update. Each change passes through marketing, regulatory, the printer and the plant. If one hand-off fails, the wrong text reaches the shelf. Because artwork feels like a design task, its failure modes rarely appear in the project's risk register.

What the research says. A study of FDA food recall data published in the Journal of Food Protection analysed 1,471 allergen and gluten recalls from fiscal years 2013 to 2019. Labeling-associated errors accounted for 71.1% of major food allergen recalls where the root cause was known.^[5] Food safety researchers reviewing earlier FDA analyses list packaging errors among the prominent root causes: the wrong package or label used, terminology errors, and allergen information not carried forward from an ingredient to the final label.^[6] These are packaging and labelling process failures, not ingredient failures.

Register line. Label or artwork content not controlled through one approval workflow → wrong information printed → batch rejected or recall. Trigger: recipe, market or regulation changes after artwork approval.

3. The returnable loop runs short of containers

How it shows up. Returnable containers look like a one-time purchase: design the container, buy the fleet, done. In practice, containers sit at the customer longer than planned, get damaged, go to the wrong site or simply disappear. The supplier runs out, ships in backup cardboard, and the damage and extra cost start. Nobody logged the risk because the fleet was "already bought".

What the research says. Johansson and Hellström studied returnable transport items using case data and simulation. They found that earlier research had largely neglected shrinkage, the gradual loss of containers from the loop, and that shrinkage has a significant impact on the operating cost of the system.^[7] A follow-up study showed that the choice of control strategy has a significant impact on investment and operating costs, that shrinkage can be controlled through tracking systems or through the choice of control strategy, and presented a simulation-based method to estimate the fleet size a loop needs.^[8] A systematic review by Christoph Glock collects the decision models available for these closed loops, including fleet sizing and control.^[9]

Industry has been building tools for exactly this problem for decades. One patent describes a container tracking system that uses a transponder with memory in each container and read/write units along the container's route.^[10] Another describes RFID methods that flag a reusable transport item when it has been inactive, so lost or idle containers can be found.^[11] Patents do not prove a method works in every loop, but they show how long this has been a known, costly problem.

Register line. Returnable fleet sized without loop time, repairs and losses → supplier runs short of containers → backup packaging, damage and extra cost. Trigger: supplier asks to use backup packaging.

4. The warehouse is not the lab

How it shows up. The box passes its compression test. Weeks later, pallets in the warehouse lean, bulge and collapse. The supplier points to the test report, and the test report is correct. It simply describes a box tested quickly, in standard lab conditions, not a box carrying a load for weeks in a humid building.

What the research says. Work at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory found that increases in moisture content reduced the time a corrugated box could carry a dead load.^[12] Later Forest Products Laboratory research showed that the conventional fixed-load test does not adequately predict a safe load when storage time is fixed, and developed a statistical method based on multiple load levels and cyclic humidity instead.^[13] Commonly used industry multipliers estimate a compression loss of around 32% at 80% relative humidity and around 52% at 90%, and around 45% after 90 days under load.^[14] Stacking pattern matters too: a 1963 study by Kellicutt observed a 55% decrease in strength for stacks in a block configuration and 18% for a column configuration.^[15]

We will go deeper into this in a later article. For the register, the point is simple: the storage and handling conditions are part of the specification, and if nobody owns them, nobody checks them.

Register line. Box strength specified at lab conditions → boxes lose strength under humidity, time and stacking → collapsed loads and damaged product. Trigger: boxes bulging or leaning in storage.

5. Packaging cost has no single owner

How it shows up. Purchasing is measured on the price per box. Logistics pays for freight and pallet space. The plant pays for packing time. Quality and customer service pay for damage and returns. A cheaper box can raise every other cost, and no single budget shows it. Over-spending is never logged as a risk because no one sees the whole bill.

What the research says. Hellström's research on packaging logistics argues that packaging and logistics professionals can only gain insight into packaging-dependent costs and performance if they understand how the packaging system and the logistics system interact.^[16] A longitudinal case study of IKEA's packaging innovation reached a similar conclusion: understanding the total impact of a packaging change requires a systems perspective across the supply chain.^[17]

Register line. No single owner for total packaging cost → savings on unit price create higher freight, labour or damage cost elsewhere → total cost above budget. Trigger: packaging approved on unit price only.

How to start logging them

You do not need a new process. Add the five lines above to your existing register, give each one an owner by name, and review them at your next project meeting. Three habits help:

• Write risks as cause → event → effect. It forces you to name the gap between departments, which is where these risks live.
• Add a trigger for each risk. A trigger is the early warning sign that tells you the risk is turning into an issue.
• Assign owners across departments. If every risk on your register belongs to packaging engineering, the gaps between departments are not covered.

Our free Packaging Project Risk Register already includes these five risks, along with more than 60 others from eight sectors, automatic scoring and a heat map. No sign-up needed.