For the third consecutive year, PSI partnered with Virginia Tech’s Packaging Systems and Design Program to sponsor senior Capstone projects, continuing our commitment to developing the next generation of packaging professionals.
As part of this partnership, PSI brings customer packaging challenges into the classroom, giving students the opportunity to develop solutions with real-world applications. This year, student teams tackled three projects representing the medical device, food & beverage, and technology industries.
Working alongside PSI design engineers and Virginia Tech faculty advisors throughout the semester, each team researched, designed, prototyped, tested, and presented a packaging solution that balanced product protection, sustainability, manufacturability, and cost efficiency. The result was three innovative projects that showcased the students’ creativity and the impact of industry-academic collaboration.
Medical Device Project
The first team was challenged with redesigning the packaging for a large home healthcare medical device, an oxygen filling station weighing approximately 70 pounds. The existing packaging relied heavily on custom expanding foam, creating an opportunity to develop a more sustainable solution while maintaining the high level of protection required during distribution.
After multiple design iterations and extensive ISTA 3A testing, the students developed a paper-based packaging system using corrugated and honeycomb materials that successfully protected the product throughout drop and vibration testing. The redesign improved recyclability, lowered material costs, simplified assembly, and created a more user-friendly unboxing experience for patients receiving critical medical equipment at home.
Food & Beverage Project
The second project focused on improving retail-ready packaging for a specialty food product sold through warehouse club retailers. Students were tasked with reducing material and printing costs while maintaining shelf appeal, improving shipping efficiency, and ensuring product protection throughout the supply chain.
The team designed and evaluated multiple retail-ready display tray concepts before recommending a final design that increased product capacity, improved pallet utilization, reduced corrugated and ink usage, and shortened folding time. Through structural testing, cost analysis, and sustainability evaluations, the students demonstrated how thoughtful package design can improve operational efficiency and overall supply chain performance.
Technology Customer
The third team redesigned the packaging for a technology product, a powered lift chair, with the goal of reducing costs, simplifying the packaging system, and improving distribution performance.
The students engineered a redesigned corrugated packaging system that reduced the total number of packaging components by more than half while lowering overall packaging costs by approximately 34%. The final design successfully passed ISTA 3B testing, maintained product protection throughout distribution, reduced environmental impact, and demonstrated how simplifying packaging can create meaningful savings without sacrificing performance.
Programs like Virginia Tech’s Capstone course provide students with invaluable hands-on experience while giving industry partners fresh perspectives on real packaging challenges. Throughout the semester, students gain experience in structural design, graphics, sustainability, testing, manufacturing, and customer collaboration—skills they will carry with them into the packaging industry.
PSI is proud to continue supporting this program and grateful to the students, faculty, and customers who make these collaborations possible. We look forward to seeing what future packaging students will accomplish!
