Why Automation is the Answer to Grow Your Business in 2025

Automated packaging systems can solve three key challenges.

By: Martha Issa, Senior Director of Sustainability at Veritiv, and David Lafe, Director of Sales Specialists at Veritiv

There is no one size fit all solution to help a business grow, but there’s one solution we recommend to all customers to consider as they map out their plans for 2025 and beyond: automation.

If you have already implemented some automated processes into your business, now is the time to add automated packaging machinery, as it has the potential to bring real value. It can help you meet cost stability objectives, improve quality goals, reduce excess waste, and meet sustainability targets — and that’s just to name a few.  Investing in automation can feel like a daunting task, but semi-automating or fully automating your systems is a necessary step to grow your business for the future.

Meet Cost Stability and Quality Goals

Customers’ needs remain at the center of a business’s growth and packaging automation is helping address their biggest priorities of financial stability, quality items, and sustainability requirements, such as packaging waste reductions. Automation is designed to produce very consistent, repeatable results. For example, the right automation solution can result in the integration of quality inspection tools and logging. In using automation, weights can be verified to identify missing product, vision systems can find and reject flawed product, and product can even be inspected within a sealed package.

Over the past four years, we have seen significant shifts in the cost and availability of labor, which in some cases has eroded organizational confidence in the sustainability and reliability of the future workforce. Projects previously seen as not viable or marginally viable have now become priorities and, in some cases, have justified longer return investment periods. 

In our experience, most businesses today are exploring automation options to reduce costs and improve process reliability.  While challenging economic conditions may delay capital investment decisions in the near term, the long-term need and outlook for automation solutions is very healthy.

Reduce Excess Waste and Material Inefficiencies

Packaging automation equipment comes in a variety of forms like flow wrappers, bag sealers, stretch wrappers, and palletizers. No matter what you add to your business, these automated solutions will allow you to analyze your team’s efficient use of materials, resulting in less waste and reducing material inefficiencies.

At Veritiv, we implemented our own internal palletizer that analyzes a customer’s palette layout and considers film application methods as well as freight and labor requirements. This approach alone can reduce material to ensure products are protected, and packaging material is optimized to improve business operations.

By automating folding cartons, you use less corrugated materials to make each box. The machine requires precise dimensions and cut lines. so that folding and overlapping line up to create the package as intended. After creating the boxes, tape and stretch film automation reduces waste and increases efficiency and quality. By automating the stretch film application, it ensures tighter and more secure wrapping because the machine can stretch without puncture and breakage to maximize effectiveness.

Final Thoughts

Incorporating automation solutions can be intimidating and right now, many companies are taking a more conservative approach in new investments. Looking ahead at the next three to five years, we believe we will experience the rapid adoption of new automation technologies as the competition and sustainability pressures continue to increase. We also anticipate there will be a greater eagerness to adopt technology as the labor force changes and we see the continued transition from different generations of workers.

As we monitor the growing automation trends for 2025 and beyond, organizations should pursue a packaging partner with expertise in packaging materials and equipment to help you define a long-term automation solution for years to come.

About the Authors

Martha Issa serves as the Senior Director of Sustainability at Veritiv where she applies her engineering and marketing background to strategize, design, and implement Veritiv’s sustainable product footprint. She has been with Veritiv for more than 15 years developing and implementing enterprise-wide strategies.

David Lafe is the Director of Sales Specialists at Veritiv. In this role, he manages the development and growth of sales specialists across all locations and ensures customer needs are met through Veritiv’s exceptional service and expertise.

Veritiv is a leading North American business-to-business specialty distributor of packaging, paper, and facility solutions. Learn more at https://www.veritiv.com/home