Car Bumper Packaging Built for Speed

Aftermarket car parts are large in size, and it’s awkward to work with the extra-large boxes made for manufactured parts. The boxes we produce to ship car bumpers are around two-by-five meters. Packaging of this size is not only difficult to ship but can also take time and labor to assemble.

However, our designers have created an easier and quicker way to package car bumpers that can speed up the fulfillment process for dealers of aftermarket car parts.

Smurfit Westrock Designers Innovate for Speed

Designers Irina Beloborodova and Abdeljabbar El-Khatouti got to work on creating bumper packaging with an automatic bottom closure that they knew would be more efficient and built for ease and speed.

Seeing Opportunities to Improve

car bumper packaging design

Boxes for car bumpers often take at least two people to assemble and at least a minute of time to fold and secure. After seeing the difficulties faced by our customers, our sales team approached our Packaging Designers in Germany with a thought: could they design bumper packaging that was easier for Smurfit Westrock to ship and for our customers to assemble?

Designers Irina Beloborodova and Abdeljabbar El-Khatouti got to work on creating bumper packaging with an automatic bottom closure that they knew would be more efficient and built for ease and speed. Taking inspiration from smaller boxes with automatic closures, they designed and tested various iterations of new bumper boxes.

“Like smaller packaging with an automatic bottom, I just started to adapt the same closure for this huge packaging, said Beloborodova. “So, this is actually the same kind of bottom, just a much larger one.”

The final iteration is very similar in function to the previous bumper packaging; however, it only requires one person to assemble it. The boxes are pre-glued, which helps them perform better when being shipped on a pallet.

easy car bumper packaging

“We also made it a little bit easier to close all the upper flaps,” said El-Khatouti. “But in function, it's the same and looks similar to the previous one.”

One person can complete full assembly in 30 seconds, compared to over a minute with two laborers in the case of the previous packaging.

Easier, Faster and Simpler

Because the new design also simplified the packaging, the team was able to reduce the number of bumper packaging box SKUs from 25 to 9, another added bonus. Since we began production, customers in Europe have gradually adopted the new packaging with several choosing to move to the automatic design because of its efficiency.

Based on the success and innovative approach of the new bumper packaging, the Company recognized it as a finalist at our 2026 European Innovation Awards.

innovative bumper packaging