Published: 8/5/2015

International Safe Transit Association’s (ISTA) Advocate Research and Value Delivery Program has been joined by Smithers as part of a major research effort to reduce product and packaging waste.

The International Safe Transit Association (ISTA) recently established the Advocate Research and Value Delivery Program with a primary objective to advance science by conducting research and collecting data that improves testing and design methodologies relating to the shipment of packaged goods and products.

As a partner of the Advocate Program, Smithers will help guide the new research aiding in the scientific advancement of package design and testing in order to lower costs, reduce environmental footprint and improve speed to market.

The program will enable a more rapid development of information sources and data driven test methods that will ensure ISTA processes, and therefore package designs, are kept relevant both domestically and internationally. This will result in an improvement to companies’ bottom line through shipment and handling damage reduction, and waste reduction.

These deliverables will add to the significant value that Smithers already provides its clients through its packaging, testing and consultancy activities.

Sam Sheppard Fidler, Distribution and Product Testing Operations Director at Smithers, comments; “We are delighted to join such a forward thinking initiative by ISTA. In order for our customers’ businesses to keep pace with fast evolving global and domestic supply chains it is vital that we have the most up to date testing and design methodologies in place, and we are proud to partner with ISTA in this program to support the development of next generation test technologies.”

International Safe Transit Association (ISTA) is an organisation focused on the specific concerns of packaging and the transportation of goods. They develop and deliver standards, educational programs and tools for the economic, social and environmental optimisation of packaging systems. 

Combining industry experience with state of the art laboratory testing and simulation facilities, Smithers testing delivers tangible solutions for clients in the packaging, paper and print industry supply chains. Our expertize encompasses chemical migration, materials selection, packaging conversion and performance in distribution and use. 

Find out more about our distribution testing services.