A Day In the Life: Packaging Engineer to Senior Commodity Manager

My career in packaging started really before I even knew it. My senior year of high school, I took a co-op at Dow Chemical working in their lab on testing plastics. The co-op gave me the opportunity to work in a lab setting and learn all about plastic properties through various tests such as tensile testing, which is crucial in determining the strength and durability of materials. During this time, I gained knowledge of lab procedures and testing methods, which provided a strong foundation for my future career in packaging. I enjoyed my time working with plastics, leading me to pursue a degree in Packaging at Michigan State University. I started my professional journey in the food and beverage industry with an internship at Coca-Cola in Houston, Texas. After graduating, I joined The J.M. Smucker Company as a Packaging Engineer in their baking and oil division. In this role, I supported manufacturing sites, implemented cost improvement projects and contributed to New Product Initiatives (NPI). My career at Smucker's evolved as I transitioned to their coffee division, shifting from an operations-focused role to one centered on research and development. This gave me an opportunity to work with the marketing team more closely, where I patented a unique packaging design, leaned the importance of speed to market, and how to define what is critical to quality (CTQ’s) during the design process to meet customer needs.

While I enjoyed my role at Smucker's, I had always been interested in the medical/healthcare industry. I felt it was the right time in my career to make the leap and switch industries. To prepare for this transition, I earned an MBA to enhance my strategic and management skills, paving the way for my next career phase.

My career in medical packaging started with Becton Dickenson and my role was in the manufacturing plant. This role was a great learning experience, involving extensive problem-solving and operational issue resolution utilizing the six-sigma process. When BD sold the division, I transitioned to Corning Life Sciences, taking on a corporate engineering role. My role expanded to include building and leading a team of packaging engineers, focusing increasingly on strategic initiatives for global packaging operations.

In 2019, a connection led me to an opportunity at Teleflex. This role was a shift from leading a package engineering team to a commodity management role, where I would be directing procurement strategies for global operations. Having always been involved in packaging and working closely with procurement and commodity managers throughout my career, the job seemed like a perfect fit, so I took the jump.

Moving from package engineering to a procurement role was eye-opening, especially during the time I made the move. I was changing careers during what is now arguably the biggest supply chain challenge to have hit our industry—the pandemic. As the intermediary managing our global supply base during a time when you couldn’t get materials, the role required intense "firefighting" initially. This period served as an extreme crash course in supply chain management, focusing on maintaining service levels and mitigating risks. Daily, I tackled the challenge of how we could best collaborate with suppliers, and internal cross functional teams to navigate the crisis.

With the pandemic behind us, my day-to-day responsibilities have evolved. I am now primarily responsible for driving the creation and implementation of our sourcing strategies for direct packaging materials across our global operations. My focus is on initiatives that manage costs, improve supply service, enhance quality, and support acquisition and new product development across the business. I collaborate closely with suppliers and engineering team to identify and qualify new trends in the industry to ensure we are well positioned. Additionally, my role involves managing supplier relationships and I provide direction on the selection of materials to ensure alignment with our strategic goals.

The challenges I face right now are similar to many other companies. We’re constantly looking at how we can offset the significant inflations that occurred in the recent years. The added struggle in this industry is that things take time. There are no quick innovations or transformations in packaging, so we have to evaluate our current portfolio and continuously improve to make the best of what we have. Other areas that pose a challenge in the packaging industry is supply risk mitigation. COVID really exposed to the industry some of our areas for supply risk. And then of course more internally ensuring we are aligned on objectives, working closely with global manufacturing sites and cross-functional teams to put together strong strategies for the company.

It would likely be more challenging with only procurement experience. For example, my background in package engineering allows me to speak the “packaging language.” It allows me to have a better understanding of the commodity I manage and the ability to categorize our portfolio of various packaging types to identify opportunities and develop a strategy. You have to understand the specifications, that go into a product in order to be successful. Understanding the process side of it, how the packaging interfaces with the equipment, material composition, and how it all works together is so important when making decisions and working with engineers and suppliers.

To the industry in general, together we need to keep working on innovations in medical packaging and explore alternative options to our current supply chain. The medical packaging industry moves at a deliberate pace to ensure due diligence and patient safety, but we need to all come together to take some leaps and work towards change.