CHICAGO - Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation has launched Design Bank, a bold new approach to packaging design. Design Bank is a user-friendly, fully searchable, web-based packaging design database intended to dramatically improve cycle times for folding carton and corrugated packaging manufacturing. "Design Bank is more than a web-based packaging design library. It's an effective way to win the advantage in a tough marketplace," said James Davis, vice president and general manager of Smurfit-Stone's Corrugated Container Division. Design Bank's benefits are far-reaching both for customers and Smurfit-Stone. Design Bank fundamentally improves the packaging decision and design process with immediate positive implications for shortening speed-to-market times. Design Bank is expected to have a significant impact on Smurfit-Stone's ability to ensure product consistency and exercise source data control across its multiple plant locations. "We've been designing boxes for more than 70 years, so we have a great deal of knowledge stored up in this company," Davis said. "Yet, before, when designers retired or left, they took all those years of experience with them. Plus, designers had to start from scratch every time they started new projects. Now, with Design Bank, a new guy walking in on his first day is the best designer in the world, simply by virtue of working with us." Design Bank allows Smurfit-Stone salespeople, customer service representatives, and packaging design engineers all over the world to view, select, and download the production and usage attributes for hundreds of thousands of designs for boxes, cartons, carriers, point-of-purchase displays, and other board material constructions. The system is Smurfit-Stone's proprietary version of WebCenter, a customizable packaging design library developed by Barco Graphics Packaging. "With Design Bank, we will be able to put our company's considerable intellectual capital to work," said Scott MacFarlane, vice president and general manager of Smurfit-Stone's Consumer Packaging Division. "Together, a Smurfit-Stone representative and customer can do everything from redesigning a package's flaps to customizing an opening feature in a single sitting. The system dramatically shortens speed-to-market times." Design Bank enables the customer and salesperson to explore design "what if's" on the web. The packaging design process often involves reviewing a variety of concepts and models. A designer can produce several rounds of samples before fully meeting a customer's needs. Design Bank makes that process transparent. Design Bank users can quickly browse thumbnail sketches or locate a specific package design through characteristics ranging from size and structural attributes to functionality. The designs can be viewed as dimensional drawings or as assembled 3D models. After selecting a design, users can easily download it to a local desktop, along with text details, in an ArtiosCAD format. The system features a number of security controls that can restrict a user's access and download capabilities. "Barco Graphics was an ideal partner for this project for a number of reasons, including demonstrated expertise in the packaging industry, the strength of its ArtiosCAD and WebCenter software programs, and a shared vision of what a design database should be," said Greg Ridenour, Smurfit-Stone Design Bank project coordinator. "Barco Graphics' engineers have worked with our own people to expand the system functionality and push performance over the top. The result is a database that is practical to maintain and truly easy for our designers and sales representatives to use."