Another promising area for using such modern technologies is packaging logistics. Thanks to smart transport packaging the supply chain can be optimised – a benefit for shoppers, too. In future, robust and versatile “envelopes” will not only be designed as information carriers but generate data themselves and/or communicate with each other, monitor content independently and be able to take productive decisions. This is at least forecast by a study commissioned by VDW, the Association of Corrugated Board Manufacturers to the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML, in Dortmund in 2017. Smart packaging can be put into practice, says the IML, by using sensors for transport monitoring, AutoID systems, 3D printing, finger prints and ID processes for paper and cardboard as well as by autonomous transport systems.