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Packaging Management System definition
A packaging management system is a computer system dedicated to managing digital (media) assets and projects for creation and modification of (consumer product) packaging. Packaging of consumer products (and to a lesser degree business to business products) has become increasingly complex because the amount of packaging is growing with the global econonomy, packaging functions become more complex and the amount of variation grows. This created the need for dedicated software which reduces human error and administrative follow-up tasks.

Who uses a packaging management system?
Packaging management systems are often used by companies producing Fast-moving consumer goods. Also their suppliers (packaging converters, graphic designers, pre-media houses) can use packaging management systems for internal reasons or as a service to their customers.

Functions of a Packaging Management System
on business logic captured in the workflow template
 * Asset Management: maintain a database of graphic and structural files representing the packaging of consumer good. Can be seen as the static perspective of the company’s packaging.
 * Project Management: Ability to define deliverables and time lines for changes to packaging or creation of new packaging. Can be seen as the dynamic perspective of the company’s packaging.
 * Task Management: Ability to assign tasks to people as needed for the progress of the packaging project and follow-up on these tasks via dashboards, notification, ...
 * Workflow: Ability to automatically create human and computer-executed tasks based
 * 2D and 3D viewing capabilities: represent packaging as accurately as possible on a computer system, often via viewing functions within a web browser

Design of a Packaging Management System
Packaging Management Systems are typically designed with following components:
 * A Web application running in an HTML web browser. This serves as the main or even only human user interface to the system.
 * A web server deployed to a computer server or cluster of computer servers. This could be on-premise of the owner of the system, or deployed in a cloud hosting facility. The web server accepts input from human editing or from other systems, executes business logic and saves information in the data layer.
 * A data layer mostly implemented as a combination of:
 * a database: structured data stored either as records in a relational database or stored as documents in a no-SQL document store
 * a file store: typically to store media files such as PDF files, Microsoft Office file, 3D files, ... Can be implemented with a conventional hard disk, more advanced storage systems like SAN or NAS or via an object store like AWS S3.

Commercial Packaging Management Systems

 * Esko WebCenter
 * Blue Software (now owned by Esko)
 * Extensions on more generic systems like Microsoft SharePoint or TeamWork