Exclusive: Cerm targets growth of short-run flexible packaging at Interpack

Cerm is a management information system (MIS) software company with deep roots in the industrial label and packaging industry. Steffen Haaga, director of global business development at Cerm, said the digitisation of labels and commercial print is now rapidly migrating to the folding carton and flexible packaging sectors.

The move toward automation and industrialisation dominated the conversation at the AB Graphic International booth during Interpack. Haaga noted that while the transition to more digital production in flexible packaging and folding cartons has been slower than in the label market, the sheer scale of these sectors offers unlimited potential for digital equipment. As order volumes increase and run lengths shorten, the focus for converters has shifted toward managing more jobs with the same equipment and workforce.

“People do not want to hire additional people to run more jobs as the average job run length decreases while adding more digital print production,” Haaga said. “We help them from estimating to production management and smarter planning. It is about how you can combine jobs on a single production run to ensure higher efficiency,” he added.

The demand for short runs is being driven by global brand owners who are increasingly pivoting toward localised campaigns. Haaga said these brands now require packaging tailored to specific countries, languages, and local names. This creates a logistical challenge for converters that can only be solved through high-level automation.

Cerm, partnering with ABG at the show, is showcasing integrations that collect data from finishing equipment for accurate material tracking and cost control, and in the future drive that equipment as well as in the label world. This allows converters to reduce setup times and track actual material usage and costs in real-time. Haaga identifies this as a critical need for the massive equipment used in flexible packaging, where streamlined setups from an MIS lead to significant savings.

Addressing price-sensitive markets like India, Haaga says the logic remains the same regardless of labour costs. “Even if labour is cheaper in India today, it is not as cheap as it was five years ago, and it will be more expensive in five years,” he says. “Systems like Cerm remove human error and eliminate the need for entering data multiple times. Every business in India wants to reduce costs and have a higher margin.”

The company has also integrated AI into its core workflow. Its new Lexis module uses AI to analyse and translate repetitive orders received via PDF or Excel, automatically matching them to existing job parameters within the Cerm MIS. Furthermore, Cerm has developed a chatbot named Lumi, trained on 2,500 pages of documentation, to provide technical support in 14 languages 24/7.

Looking ahead, Cerm is focusing on its new scheduling optimiser. As converters move from five jobs a day to upwards of 50, manual scheduling becomes impossible. The new system uses automated and intelligent rules-based algorithms to bundle orders based on substrates, deadlines, and finishing options, allowing for automated, efficient production runs.