Skip to main content
Advantive

Key Takeaways from SuperCorrExpo 2024

By Grace Barton Updated
Key Takeaways from SuperCorrExpo 2024

SuperCorrExpo, North America’s largest corrugated event, brought together 6,000+ packaging professionals from September 8 – 12. Advantive and Kiwiplan attended this year’s trade show just a couple weeks ago looking to:

  • Establishing new and stronger relationships
  • Fostering deeper collaboration
  • Addressing and resolving current challenges
  • Identifying emerging industry trends
  • Understanding the impact of rising trends

SuperCorrExpo Highlights

Wayne Stocks, Senior Sales Engineer, showcased Kiwiplan’s capabilities to streamline processes and increase operational efficiency with over 20 interactive and dynamic demonstrations. The demos highlighted the key modules our customers utilize, including order management, costing and pricing, purchasing, production recording, and shipping management.

The highlights from Wayne’s presentations were Kiwiplan’s ERP and MES functionalities. We connected with key customers, discussed our important integration capabilities with existing systems, and provided detailed insight into our waste reporting mechanisms. Wayne also lead an intimate, customer-centric conversation about Advantive’s commitment to their success, and received their feedback on how we can continue to improve Kiwiplan.

Advantive Team Customer Insights

Throughout SuperCorrExpo 2024, our sales team captured valuable insight from attendees about their key pain points. Common themes included the need for greater traceability, tighter regulatory compliance, and minimizing waste while maximizing efficiency. These conversations reaffirmed the capabilities of Kiwiplan, that both increases operational efficiency and aligns with emerging industry needs.

Some of the key insights provided by our sales team included:

  • Automated Machine Connectivity: There was a strong need for increased machine connectivity to further automate processes, which was a recurring topic of interest.
  • Cost-Cutting Tools: Many attendees inquired about tools that assist with reducing costs, including TSS, which was frequently praised for its ability to minimize freight expenses. Features like OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), CWR (Corrugator Waste Reduction), and QMS (Quality Management System) were also topics of high interest.
  • Operating Multiple Facilities with Centralized Teams: Another significant trend was the need to manage multiple facilities using centralized teams and systems, allowing businesses to analyze production loads across plants more effectively. Data warehousing was seen as a key solution to enable this kind of visibility.

SuperCorrExpo 2024 was all about the future, and many of the best conversations we had were about new industry trends that have emerged since the last show held in 2021. Whether you were attending as a contributor or just looking for a solution, conversations focused on utilizing data-driven dashboards, artificial intelligence, and digital printing and cutting.

  • Data-Driven Dashboards: Business intelligence (BI) and dashboards are becoming increasingly important in the corrugated packaging industry. Many machine vendors are shifting from providing HMI and basic reporting to real-time dashboards to enable better monitoring and optimization of machinery.
  • Artificial Intelligence: Since the last SuperCorrExpo in 2021, artificial intelligence has become a hot topic, going from one meeting session to three meeting sessions. The Tuesday keynote covered the topic of AI in production and how it can help manufacturers improve their processes by analyzing data and making decisions.
  • Digital Printing & Cutting: Major printing industry players were all present at SuperCorrExpo. Digital printing and cutting continues to be a rising topic, with many smaller players attempting to enter the market and more vendors providing cutting solutions.

The insights Advantive and Kiwiplan were able to gather from this event was invaluable and will help us stay ahead of these trends and deliver more real-time insights, automated decision-making, and advanced digital printing solutions to our customers.

Advantive Promotes How MES Improves Sustainability Efforts

Sharon DiRe, Advantive’s Senior Product Marketing Manager for our Packaging portfolio, spoke on a podcast at SuperCorrExpo 2024 about how Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are driving sustainability efforts, and the key Kiwiplan features that enable them.

Sharon brought Advantive’s unique perspective to the interview and covered some topics, such as:

  • Regulatory Compliance and Traceability: MES enables manufacturers to meet new regulations by providing detailed genealogy tracking, from raw materials like paper (roll stock) through to the finished product. This ensures full traceability, which is critical for compliance, like the new EU deforest regulation that requires companies to be able to trace materials from the tree to the box. We are currently looking to enhance Kiwiplan’s genealogy tracking capabilities to help meet the new regulations.

  • Waste Minimization: MES plays a pivotal role in minimizing waste through optimal scheduling, die cutter optimization, and concurrent job management.

    • Optimal Scheduling: MES helps in scheduling production in a way that maximizes the use of raw materials while minimizing waste. By planning production runs that align with material availability and machine efficiency, MES reduces the amount of leftover material.

    • Die Cutter Optimization: Maximizing the number of boxes produced per sheet, MES ensures that the layout is optimized to minimize waste during cutting operations.

    • Concurrent Job Management: MES allows for running concurrent jobs where possible, reducing machine downtime and ensuring that materials are used efficiently across different production lines.

  • Efficiency in Resource Utilization: MES enhances the efficiency of resource utilization through automated scheduling adjustments and right material, right machine.

    • Automated Scheduling Adjustments: MES automatically adjusts machine and truck schedules to maximize efficiency. This includes optimizing truck loading and delivery routes, which reduces the number of truck runs and therefore lowers the carbon footprint. Kiwiplan handles this with 24/7 scheduling automation through its TSS solution.

    • Right Material, Right Machine: MES ensures that the correct materials are delivered to the appropriate machines at the right time, reducing delays and waste associated with material handling errors.

  • Sustainability Through Automation: By enabling 24/7 automation, MES reduces the need for manual intervention, which not only improves efficiency but also reduces energy consumption and waste. Automated systems ensure that resources are used optimally, leading to fewer emissions and a reduced carbon footprint.

  • Waste Reporting & Continuous Improvement: MES includes waste reporting functionalities that allow manufacturers to track their progress in waste reduction and resource efficiency. This data-driven approach enables continuous improvement, as manufacturers can identify areas for further waste reduction and implement strategies to achieve sustainability goals.

Thanks for Joining Advantive & Kiwiplan at SuperCorrExpo 2024

Kiwiplan’s presence at SuperCorrExpo 2024 solidified our commitment to our customer and made a lot of positive impressions on our booth visitors. SuperCorr also provided us with valuable insights and emphasized the importance of optimizing manufacturing processes. It’s clear that Kiwiplan is well-positioned to meet the evolving needs of the corrugated packaging industry, from engaging in live interactive demos to the meaningful conversations with attendees.

Interested in learning more? Book your demo of Kiwiplan to see how our integrated packaging ERP and MES software can meet and exceed your system requirements.

Grace Barton

Marketing Specialist

About the Author Latest Posts

Grace Barton is a digital marketing and competitive intelligence professional who crafts strategic narratives by bridging marketing insights with analytical expertise. At Advantive, she creates engaging, data-driven content tailored to the distribution, manufacturing, packaging, and quality industries. Her goal is to deliver impactful messaging that drives engagement and growth based on specific gap closure needs, whether responding to sales organization requirements, pinpointing gaps in content, or meeting immediate market trends.
She thrives on transforming competitive intelligence into actionable insights for the sales organization. Grace manages Advantive’s competitive intelligence platform, Klue, to equip the sales team with the battlecards and market data they need to stay ahead of competitors. Since launch, she’s built 28+ battlecards across four lines of business, ensuring the GTM strategy stays sharp.
Grace has a passion for leveraging market insights with storytelling to guide strategic decision-making, empower sales organizations, and nurture organizational growth.

Areas of Expertise: Digital Marketing, Competitive Intelligence, Strategic Narratives, Marketing Insights, Analytical Expertise

LinkedIn

Editorial standards

Fact-checking & editorial guidelines

Every article on advantive.com is written and reviewed against an internal accuracy standard before publication. Here's what that means in practice.

  • Product claims are verified by the brand team that owns the platform.

    When an article references InfinityQS, WinSPC, PQ Systems, Pinpoint, ParityFactory, ProPlanner, KiwiPlan, DDI System, VeraCore, or any of Advantive's other specialty platforms, the relevant product team checks technical statements about features, deployment, and current capability before the article goes live.

  • External statistics cite their source inline.

    When an article references industry survey results, regulatory benchmarks, or third-party research, the source is linked at the point of citation. Statements without an inline source link are first-party observations drawn from Advantive's product teams or customer base.

  • Publication and revision dates stay visible.

    The original publication date and the most recent revision date are both shown on every article. Topics that change quickly — AI capabilities, regulatory rules, product roadmaps — are revisited on a tighter cadence than evergreen reference content.

  • Corrections are issued openly.

    If a factual error is reported, the article is updated, the revision date advances, and material corrections are noted at the bottom of the article so readers can see what changed and when.

Found something wrong, or have a citation to add? Get in touch with the editorial team and we'll review it.

Subject-matter review

Reviewed by subject-matter experts

Advantive is a portfolio of 14+ specialty software platforms — each one built and maintained by a product team that has spent years inside a specific manufacturing or distribution discipline. Articles in technical channels are reviewed by the relevant team before publication.

  • Quality & SPC content

    Reviewed by the InfinityQS, WinSPC, and PQ Systems product teams — the platforms behind statistical process control, capability analysis, and gage management deployments across food, automotive, pharma, and CPG manufacturers.

  • Manufacturing operations & MES content

    Reviewed by the PINpoint, ProPlanner, ParityFactory, and VIA Information Tools teams, whose platforms run production scheduling, traceability, and shop-floor execution for discrete, automotive, and food-and-beverage manufacturers.

  • Packaging & converter content

    Reviewed by the KiwiPlan, Abaca, and AdvantZware teams, who build software specifically for corrugated, folding-carton, and packaging-converter operations.

  • Distribution, ERP & B2B commerce content

    Reviewed by the DDI System (inFORM ERP), Distribution One, VeraCore, Pepperi, and Commerce Vision teams, whose platforms run wholesale ERP, fulfillment, field sales, and B2B portals for specialty distributors and 3PLs.

Are you a practitioner with domain expertise to contribute? Get in touch — we accept guest contributions from operators in the industries we serve.