• Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform deployed at Metsä Board, a leading European manufacturer of high-quality fibre-based packaging boards and a pioneer in sustainability, helps reduce carbon footprint of packaging and time-to-market
• Metsä Board is part of Metsä Group, a Finnish forest industry group with business operations covering the entire value chain for wood.

Helsinki, Finland — November 24, 2021 — Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: FR0014003TT8, DSY.PA) is supporting Metsä Board with its cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform. As first of its kind industry solution Metsä Board utilises Dassault Système 3DEXPERIENCE platform that enables the digitalisation of the development and testing of prototypes for packaging solutions. Virtual simulation helps optimise packaging design, reduce carbon footprint and significantly accelerate the development of new packaging solutions.

“We wanted to accelerate our rate of innovation to help our customers, packaging manufacturers as well as brand owners, with optimal packaging solutions and reduce their carbon footprint.  We felt the traditional way of optimising material and design solutions for packaging took too much time – including physically developing each prototype designed and testing multiple times before the final product was made. Thanks to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform we are now able to recommend optimum paperboard or propose new packaging solutions 85% faster compared to physical prototyping,” said Markku Leskelä, SVP, Development, Metsä Board.

The state-of-the-art solution of Dassault Systemès and expertise from past engagements in the aerospace and automotive industry has helped deploy new technologies to the manufacturing of fibre-based packaging.

“The aerospace and automotive industries have successfully used virtualisation tools for a number of years in their product development. Our engagement identified areas where these learnings could be deployed in the packaging industry. These industries share the need to develop ever lighter products, reduce the consumption of raw materials and meet strict strength and performance requirements.  The 3DEXPERIENCE platform makes this possible,” says John Kitchingman, Managing Director, EuroNorth, Dassault Systèmes.

Simulation technologies help manage the development of the entire product life cycle, from material selection to delivery. The customer is able to test new solutions, identify environmentally friendly material alternatives and simulate how they work during manufacture, transportation, with the entire process being managed sustainably.

Potential of savings and carbon footprint reductions is substantial. For example for pharmaceutical packaging Metsä Board can recommend lighter board weight that will perform equally well while helping to cut the carbon footprint of the packaging. The company’s production capacity is 1.3 million tons of folding boxboard every year, and if all of that were used to produce pharmaceutical packages weighing seven grams each, it would be enough to make 430 million packages a day. Cutting the board weight by just 1% would save the amount of natural resources needed to produce 4.3 million packages a day.