Product Life Cycle

Optimizing Product Packaging

As part of the company's commitment to the environment, NI has made a concerted effort to increase the use of recyclable materials, such as corrugated board. NI has worked diligently with its suppliers to increase the use of paper in packaging design as a replacement for polyurethane foam. Going forward, NI will continue to work with suppliers to ensure that NI packaging designs have a minimal environmental footprint.

In 2010, NI focused on "reduction from within," where employees who worked on the kitting line were trained to look for ways to potentially optimize packaging. Through this process, more than 100 parts were reevaluated for packaging optimization, resulting in 83 packaging changes.

Because of this employee education effort, in 2010, NI reduced the amount of polyurethane foam used in packaging by 39 percent. Additionally, after much research and testing, NI replaced a significant amount of the foam in packaging with a paper-based filler.

The following polyurethane and corrugate usage charts show data from NI Hungary only, which accounts for 98 percent of usage.

Polyurethane Foam Used

Total Polyurethane Foam Used (m³)

2007	2008	2009	2010
747	1,249	511	463

In 2010, overall corrugate usage increased slightly, by 9 percent, due to an increased production load. However, the average corrugate usage per 1,000 production units was down 27 percent due to employee education and packaging design changes for a popular product.

Corrugated Board Used

Corrugated Board Used (kg)

2007	2008	2009	2010
157,199	200,901	141,907	154,661