Barco supports SCA Packaging in creating a virtual store

Case study

“Customers are often unsure what the product and the packaging solution will look like in a shop. Our virtual system removes this uncertainty,” says Wim Wouters, SCA Packaging’s European Design Director “Barco’s technology supported us in our ambition to create a virtual shop for collaborative design review. This enables us to speed up the review process significantly.”

Virtual store puts SCA-customers one step ahead
At SCA Packaging, design and development takes place in close cooperation with customers in Design Centers all over Europe. The Innovation Center in Brussels links together all SCA’s Design Centers and creates a forum where manufacturers, retailers and SCA designers can jointly develop packaging solutions in a structured approach. The two-channel stereoscopic CADWall delivered by Barco allows SCA to visualise the conceptual packaging designs between competing products on the shelf in an interactive in-store environment.
“As research tells us that 70 percent of all purchasing decisions are made in shops and that on average it takes three seconds to make a decision, all our work begins and ends with shopper insights,” says Wim Wouters, ”Thanks to its excellent real to life stereoscopic visualization, the system allows us to gain in-depth knowledge about what turns a shopper into a consumer”.

Getting products to market faster
“Instead of presenting physical mock-ups, SCA now can show the customer how his packaging will look in the store when the shelf is full or half full, all at life size and in three dimensions. Changes no longer require a series of new sketches, extra meetings and new physical prototypes –an expensive, time–consuming process.”, says Stephen McAneny, Vice President Sales & Marketing at SCA Packaging, "Designs can be adapted in real-time - whatever the location of the designer - and integrated immediately into the virtual shelf for customer reviews." 
"By using the Virtual shop we have seen a significant reduction in the time it takes to get a design approval, for our customers this obviously has a profound effect in terms of getting their products to market faster.” concludes John D. Williams, President SCA Packaging Europe.

SCA Packaging leading in design
SCA Packaging is a European leading provider of customer-specific packaging solutions with emphasis on state-of-the-art design and local service close to customer facilities.
With a product portfolio that includes transport, consumer and display packaging, customised protective packaging and industrial packaging, SCA Packaging answers to each market requirement.
SCA Packaging employes 17,600 people at more than 240 locations in some 30 countries. Sales amounted to € 3.6 billion in 2006.
www.scapackaging.com