Research the Discipline Construction and Reform of Packaging Engineering
Based on the Complete Packaging Solutions
Ying-zhe Xiao1,a, Xi-hai Hao1,b, De-jian Zhao1,c
1
School of Packaging and Materials Engineering, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou, China
(axiaoyingzhe7410@126.com, bhaoxihai@tom.com, czdjwsx_009@163.com)
Abstract - The shortcomings of the existing professional
education in the packaging engineering discipline are
summarized in this paper, and the new packaging
engineering education method is put forward on the basis of
regarding packaging system design and providing complete
packaging solution as the guiding ideology after researching
and analyzing the education and development situation of
packaging engineering domestics and abroad. It is
emphasized in this work that modern education should focus
on practical teaching link and cultivate the students’
awareness of building big project design and system design.
These not only make students’ professional comprehensive
design ability used maximum efficiently by enterprises and
market, but also promote the rapid development of
packaging industry.
Keywords
- packaging engineering,
construction, complete packaging solutions
products packaging to the environment in using process,
try to improve their reusable, and furnish services from
professional consulting to complete package solution and
the subsequent related services for customers. Obviously,
the product concept covers the whole value chain [2].
specialty
I. INTRODUCTION
Packaging engineering is a new interdisciplinary
science which merges with multiple natural sciences and
social sciences on the foundation of packaging science
and packaging engineering science. At the same time, it is
a system engineering combining with technology,
engineering, art and culture. Its major content includes the
theory of various aspects and their application in the
packaging field such as packaging materials, packaging
containers, packaging decoration, packaging printing,
packaging machinery, packaging technology and craft,
packaging test, packaging circulation and management,
packaging regulations and so on, and is a significant
science foundation of the development of packaging
industry[1]. With the expansion of the scale of
international commodity exchange and the progress of
science and technology, human being has a more
profound understanding to the serious influence of the
commodity packaging to ecological environment. The
requirements of the international packaging are more and
more strict, and make up harsh and complex regulations.
It requires that packaging workers can't only focus on
mastering a single skill, but also should start from
products, and can have certain cognitive ability and a
considerable degree of mastery to the packing used
materials, modeling structure, process manufacturing and
the whole process of circulation environment that packing
goes through. The development of science gives birth to
the whole concept of packaging design. It regards the
market as the driver, considers customers’ demands as
driven, provides the complete package solution which
covers the whole logistics process in the packaging life
cycle for customers, efforts to reduce the impact of
Fig.1. Disciplinary formation of packaging design
II. ANALYSIS OF PRESENT RESEARCH SITUATION
AT HOME AND ABROAD
A. The education of packaging engineering abroad
Through the early investigation, we know that
packaging engineering discipline was built in the 1950s in
the developed country, such as School of Packaging in
American Michigan State University. It was created in
the 1950s and has formed to the complete system of
cultivating the packaging engineering bachelor, master
and doctor till the 1990s. At present, there are 39
universities that are training the packaging engineering
talents at any levels in American, including five
universities offering Master Degree and two universities
offering Ph.D.[3]. Packaging engineering education in
Europe was almost in step with that in US. Several
Europe countries, such as Germany, Britain and France,
are more developed relatively. Here, the higher education
system which trains Bachelors, Masters and Ph.Ds at
every level in packaging area is nearly perfect in German,
such as Germany Dortmund University, Stuttgart Printing
College, Berlin Institute of Technology, Packaging
Technology major of the Leipzig Higher School in
Germany and so on. Besides, France has had Packaging
College, while there are also packaging engineering in
Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Australia, New
Zealand, South Korea, India and Thailand. The
professional education of packaging engineering pays
attention to the cultivation of the students’ comprehensive
ability in foreign, for instance American universities
attaches great importance to the humanities applications
and reflects in packaging design, while Germany pay
more attention to the practical skills and the teaching of
management knowledge needed by enterprise[4].
B. Domestic education of packaging engineering
In China, Jiangnan University is the first to set up the
packaging engineering discipline. Since 1962 the
packaging engineering course has been started. It began to
recruit undergraduate in the name of Packaging
Machinery in 1977 and try to set up Packaging
Engineering degree in1984. In the same year, it also
began to cultivate graduate students in the direction of
packaging technologies and equipment research [4].
At present, since the background that packaging
engineering relies on is different in universities and
colleges of China, its teaching and curriculum mode are
also various, and roughly trend to the following aspects
respectively: packaging machinery, packaging decoration,
food packaging, packaging and printing, packaging CAD,
etc. Due to different emphasis, students cultivated appear
to the situation that the guide direction is disordered in the
filed of employment, resulting in some students at school
have confusion and misunderstanding on the profession,
and even start to "mud along".
The research of our colleges and universities to the
course system of integrated packaging design has not
been reported. Only Jiangnan University has opened the
course of packaging system design, and made a
preliminary study of the direction.
C. Study and requirements of packaging enterprises at
home
In terms of the enterprise, currently, a great majority
of packaging enterprises are the processing factory of
packing and printing in China. In generally, according to
the needs of customers, they manufacture directly the
regularly packaging and printing products. The so-called
work that the design and development department needs
to do is essentially "copying". Basically there are not
comprehensive designs to characteristics of products.
Currently, only two or three companies, such as Nefab
(NEFAB) Packaging Engineering Co., LTD, Tokyo
holdings Co., LTD and so on, have implemented the
research about the complete packaging solutions.
Although enterprises hope that colleges can cultivate a
group of compound design talents with high
comprehensive quality, our graduates are difficult to bear
the burden of finishing the complete package solution.
Hence, for the characteristics of professional
marginal and cross-discipline of packaging engineering,
the personal training should be clear about the location of
the output talents in the packaging area based on
satisfying the requirements of the job market and social
industry. In addition, it’s necessary to raise the student’s
comprehensive ability of engaging in packaging system
design and performing the complete package solutions.
III. TEACHING CHARACTERISTICS AND EXISTING
PROBLEMS OF PACKAGING ENGINEERING
In China packaging engineering is an emerging
interdisciplinary and comprehensive profession. Although
its development speed is quick and has made great
progress, many courses still use directly the theory system
of the related subject because of the short time of running
school and the relatively weak foundation. This is why
packaging professional students have a heavy burden of
course, the weak theoretical knowledge and general
professional features. At present, the teaching content of
packaging engineering mainly has the following
characteristics in China [5]:
First, although it involves more than the subject
system, the mina core is packaging design.
Second, there are lots of course, and time is tight.
The support that some professional class, or basic course
and leading class provide is insufficient. To achieve the
purpose of teaching, professional classes have to give
consideration
to
the
foundation
and
related
interdisciplinary subjects. Meanwhile, the new technology
is developing very quickly and needs to be reflected to the
course in time. Besides, a contradiction of class tight is
more outstanding.
Third, these involved problems are in a wide range
with strong practicality. This is accepted by public in the
industry.
The
former
reflects
interdisciplinary
characteristics, while the latter incarnates the
characteristics of modern packaging industry.
From the point of view of curriculum system, there
are the following problems [6]:
1) The curriculum system of packaging engineering
is lack of integrity. The consistency of arrangements
between a course and another related course is inadequate.
Furthermore, there is a repeated phenomenon in part of
the course content.
2) There are more prominent contradictions between
the reduction of professional class hours and the large
capacity of packaging engineering courses;
3) We are lack of case analysis teaching materials of
packaging engineering design with strong comprehensive
performance.
4) The practical teaching links don’t continue to keep
up with because of equipment, supplies and another
reason;
5) The traditional teaching method can stimulate the
students' autonomous learning. Students' innovative
consciousness and ability can’t be developed.
IV. BASICS IDEA OF THE PROFESSION
CONSTRUCTION
A. Establish the central link of the specialty construction
and reform of packaging engineering
According to demands of packing industry and
market for the integrated design talents of packaging
engineering, it’s time to adjust the course system. We
should restructure the course structure, optimize the
teaching plan integrally the core curriculum and the
corresponding teaching outline, and determine the
practical teaching requirements and the teaching outline
of practical course on account of the needed knowledge,
ability and quality structure. Moreover, we would
research the training target and plan of creative realization
for packaging engineering professional comprehensive
design talents based on the complete packaging solutions,
and reform the existing teaching methods and means. It is
also necessary to organize to write and public the
supporting professional teaching materials or handouts.
B. The core ideas of teaching reform
1) Establishing thoughts of the complete packaging
solutions in the course system.
2) To perfect teaching system and curriculum
system.
Through the teacher's teaching reform and practice,
the teaching system of packaging engineering course
should be revised and perfect in order to let it suit the
education law better. At the same time we ought to make
it satisfy the demand of enterprises and times. Besides, the
course relating to the complete packaging design should
be optimized and integrated. The course system could be
further improved. And students' comprehensive
engineering design ability and the basic skill training need
to be strengthened.
3) Deepening and perfecting the joint training of
universities and companies
Through the strengthening of the combination of
production, study and research, the students' participation
could be cultivated so that students can have an
opportunity to participate the development of products
packaging in enterprises, and finish project design
systematically and independently which is closely with
the market. So we can cultivate compound design talents
for enterprises, and improve the employment rate of
graduates; meanwhile we will further deepen and perfect
the joint training of universities and companies based on
the all-round teaching reform about the complete
packaging solutions.
V. KEY PROBLEMS OF PROFESSIONAL
CONSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION REFORM
A. Clear about the core content of packaging system
design and complete packaging solutions
Packaging system thinking mode comes from the
way of modern system thinking. For the sake of making
up for shortcomings of a single discipline and profession,
we usually carry out the integrated design which is active,
interdisciplinary and cross-major by systematic thinking
methodology[7]. Generally speaking, the packaging system
consists of elemental composition, structure components
and function constitute (as the following figure).
Fig.2. Composition of packaging system
The complete package solutions applies the
marketing idea to the packaging industry, and is a set of
system services which packing suppliers (manufacturers)
provide from the selection of packaging materials and
suppliers, to the packaging design and production, to
logistics and distribution until the end-user[8]. This is the
more widely consideration category of packaging system
design.
Fig.3. Basics workflow of the complete packaging solutions
In the process of the teaching reform, first of all
thoughts of complete packaging solutions should be
established clearly. Then teachers should guide students
to change traditional and inherent concept in packaging
design, and train students’ design thinking mode in view
of system design and the great engineering design. It
ought to be treated as a key point to train students’
practical ability. And the classroom learning should be
combined with practical problems as far as possible. We
should train students' practical ability; at the same time it
is necessary to strengthen their independent creative
realization. On the basis of understanding the basic
production mode of packaging industry, it should be done
to constantly develop students' creative thinking, put
forward own views and the feasibility creative design
from multiple angles such as packing structure and
modeling, protection, logistics and distribution, sale
mode, market management, etc, [9] and cultivated
students’ adaptability for change in the market or the
design process.
B. The optimization and integration of courses
In accordance with requirements of packing system
design and the coverage of complete packaging solutions,
the main professional course will be optimized and
integrated (as the following picture)[10]. The teaching
status is able to be established about a series of courses of
packaging system design and complete packaging
solutions. And students' interest to learn and participate
should be improved. We expect to be able to finally
improve the teaching result through the flexible and
various teaching methods [11]. The main means include:
1) The comparison and analysis of excellent cases
Through showing the videos of excellent design
cases at home and abroad for students, we should guide
students to participate in the discussion on the basis of
analyzing the integrated design process. All kinds of
basics design theory will be combined with design
practice in the interactive classroom atmosphere. And let
students feel that the comprehensive engineering design is
not far away from him.
2) Deepening practice operation further
The teachers should understand all kinds of
information in time. According to the existing condition,
teachers can also set some actual or virtual packaging
design topic for students, and encourage them to practice
and apply all sorts of design knowledge that has been
learned to the subject. Meanwhile they are able to weave
together the content involved in every link of the whole
package together, guide the students to become familiar
with the actual operational program of packaging
production. There’s no doubt that it will make students
leisurely as they need to deal with practical issues of
production which may be encountered in future work.
Fig.4. Course system satisfying the packaging system design and overall
solutions
C. Broadening the students' horizons
It can be done to introduce the education mode of the
international advanced packaging design, such as paying
attention to train students' comprehensive ability,
attaching importance to the application of the humanities
in packaging design, emphasizing to train the practical
skills and management knowledge, ect.
VI. CONCLUSION
During cultivating students’ ability of designing
comprehensive system and finishing the complete
packaging solutions, the key is that students should set up
the awareness of the great project design and system
design. In addition, it is also very important that we are
involved in the practical base as much as possible. We can
use all effective ways, such as practice, practice base
projects, enterprises’ production videos’ analysis,
classroom cases’ discussion, course design, graduation
design and so on, to gradually strengthen and train the
students' practical ability step by step.
Under the guidance though of the complete
packaging solutions we should formulate the talent
training scheme, meet the need of the market and
enterprises; According to these needs, the students should
be trained as enterprise-order-form. These not only make
students’ professional comprehensive design ability used
maximum efficiently by enterprises and market, but also
promote the rapid development of packaging industry and
provide the helpful reference for the national education
reform.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The work was Supported by Education Reform &
Research Project of Hunan Provincial Education
Department (Xiangjiaotong[2010]Number 243-258).
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