Packaging Strategies '99 Kicks Off Monday
By: Bill Noone
Close to 500 executives will be making their way to Atlanta over the weekend to attend Packaging Strategies '99, being held Monday, March 22, through Wednesday, March 24 at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel. Titled Buying, Building, Managing in the Roaring, Raucous 2000s, this year's Packaging Strategies meeting, the twelfth in the conference series, will focus on the changing scope of the packaging industry as the next century approaches. Featured speakers will include an impressive lineup of chief executives from throughout the packaging industry.
The meeting kicks off Monday morning with an optional pre-conference seminar designed especially for supply chain executives. "Streamlining the Packaging Supply Chain for the Next Century," featuring speakers from Global Sources Solutions, Matrix Information Technologies, Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Tenneco Specialty Product Group, will focus on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software systems and how these systems can effectively integrate information between purchasing, sales, manufacturing and logistics functions, and link companies to their customers.
Buying, Building on a Global Scale
Monday will also feature presentations from Huntsman Packaging's president and CEO, Richard P. Durham, and John J. Powers, executive VP of AEP Industries. These company leaders will discuss the perils of global acquisitions and growth and what it takes to manage successfully in today's turbulent business climate. Monday's sessions will also include a presentation from Sergio Haberfeld of Dixie Toga S.A. on South America's packaging market and an update from George Staphos and Patricia Kasehagen of Salomon Smith Barney on trends in the changing European packaging markets.
Consolidation and mergers in the packaging business, particularly those in the packaging machinery industry, will be the highlight of Tuesday morning. Stewart Brown, CEO of BWI plc, and Robert Chapman, chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller Co., will discuss the imminent restructuring of the world's packaging machinery industry and whether Barry-Wehmiller will become the "Microsoft" of the packaging machinery business, respectively. They'll be followed by Cornelius Thornton of Goldman Sachs and Tim Burns of Cranial Capital Inc., who will review the state of the packaging business in light of packaging's various mega-mergers. The morning will conclude with a live, on-stage interview with William J. Avery, chairman and CEO of Crown Cork & Seal, who will share his views on the future for global packaging suppliers.
Color Standards, Beer Packaging, 'Hedging'
Packaging color standards and package printing will be the focus of a Tuesday afternoon end-user panel featuring representatives from Kraft Foods, Hershey Foods and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. A second end-user panel, which will include speakers from Bass Brewers and The South African Breweries, will disect the newest in beer packaging — plastic bottles — and what it will take for such packaging to succeed.
The conference will continue on Wednesday with a presentation from Paul Stecko, president and CEO of Tenneco Packaging. He'll tell how his giant-sized company is preparing for the next century. Robert Schad, president and CEO of Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd., will then discuss Husky's central role in the advancement of PET packaging and how it has enabled the company to go public.
Finally, the conference wraps up with a panel discussion on "hedging," and whether or not such strategies can work for end-users as well as suppliers.
For more information on Packaging Strategies '99, including the full conference program, log onto Packaging Strategies Inc.'s website at www.packstrat.com.
Editor's Note: Stay tuned to Packaging Network for daily reports live from Packaging Strategies '99 by Managing Editor Bill Noone.