Why industrial packaging is ready for a digital revolution — A conversation between the CEOs of Faes and Sensolus

Faes is a company with nearly four decades of experience in industrial packaging. This is not the retail kind you see on supermarket shelves, but the heavy-duty packaging used to ship machines, high-value components, and industrial equipment across the globe. And according to Johan Faes, the industry has been slow to innovate.

“The industrial packaging world is quite conservative. It hasn’t really changed that much,” Johan explains. “When I compare it to retail packaging, which keeps innovating — in terms of circularity, product development, and raw material innovation — the industrial side has essentially stood still.”

Johan has been advocating for change for the better part of two decades. Ten years ago, people compared him to Don Quixote — fighting windmills. But the tide is turning. “Over the past five years or so, people have started listening. They say: Faes has had a consistent story all along. Maybe we should have that conversation after all.”

What’s changed? According to Kristoff, a series of external forces have made the case for digitalization impossible to ignore.

“Since Covid — the supply chain shocks that occurred — and the geopolitical shifts happening now, you have to think completely differently about a logistics chain. You need real-time visibility. In the past you could get away without it, but now everything is so dynamic that you simply must have it.”

The message is clear: the old approach of shipping packaging into the world and hoping for the best is no longer viable. Companies need to know where their assets are, what condition they’re in, and when they’ll arrive in real time.

The financial argument is compelling. Johan describes research conducted with the University of Groningen into so-called “defects on arrival” — situations where goods arrive damaged or where the wrong parts end up in the wrong packaging.

“If a product has travelled around the world only for someone in Korea or Taiwan to discover that the wrong part was in the box — that costs an enormous amount of money. Suddenly it becomes urgent: private planes need to fly, taxis need to race. When you quantify that, people realize: wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could prevent these things? That’s where you’re really saving money.”

Kristoff adds a concrete example from Sensolus’s own customer base:

This is where Sensolus’s tracking and monitoring technology makes the difference. By digitizing the supply chain and attaching sensors to packaging and assets, companies get early warning signals that prevent costly surprises downstream.

Both CEOs agree that adoption isn’t just a technology question — it’s a trust question. Companies need to feel confident before handing over visibility of their operations.

“It all starts with trust,” says Kristoff. “Nobody will openly say they’re losing or misplacing packaging. Everyone knows it happens — you feel it — but it’s invisible, unquantified. Once you build that trust and bring transparency to the table as professional partners, the right decisions and the right discussions start to happen.”

Johan echoes this sentiment when discussing why companies hesitate to outsource packaging management: “Everything you outsource feels a bit scary — you have to let go a little. It’s an emotional thing.” But the numbers quickly dispel the fear. “We have examples where clients using expensive reusable packaging could run their entire supply chain with half the number of units — simply by managing the packaging pool properly.”

A central theme of the conversation is why the Faes–Sensolus partnership makes strategic sense. Faes brings deep industry expertise and long-standing customer relationships in the packaging world. Sensolus brings the technology platform — IoT sensors, real-time tracking, and data analytics — that makes intelligent packaging management possible.

“You need someone from the industry who lives and breathes the packaging problem, who has the trust of these companies,” Kristoff explains. “We focus intensely on building technology that works reliably. But you still need a partner who can bring it to the right customers, in the right context, and guide the adoption step by step.”

When asked about the future, both leaders paint an ambitious but grounded picture. Johan envisions the concept of a “control tower” — a central point of oversight across the entire supply chain, monitoring every packaging movement, every return, every potential inefficiency. He’s even coined the term “Fourth Party Packaging” to describe Faes’s role as a supply chain orchestrator for packaging.

“I believe in product passports — every product being traceable from cradle to cradle. You want to know what’s happening, and from that knowledge, you can make better decisions.”

Kristoff sees a clear technological trajectory: “If you think back ten or fifteen years, not every truck had telematics. Now, no truck operates without it. I’m absolutely
certain that within ten years, the same will be true for reusable packaging. You simply won’t ship a packaging unit without tracking.”

The ultimate destination? Packaging as a Service. Johan believes that for circularity to truly succeed, the packaging manufacturer should retain ownership of the materials, with customers paying per use. “The customer no longer pays for the expensive reusable packaging itself — they pay for each use. That keeps the responsibility and the raw materials with us, so we can plan for a second life, even a third life for those materials.”

For companies listening in and wondering where to begin, both CEOs have the same advice: don’t wait for the perfect solution — take a first step.

Johan suggests starting with a quick scan: “Have a first conversation. Look at what you’re doing now. Often, the low-hanging fruit is visible right away. Then build trust from there — small steps forward, but always forward.”

Kristoff recommends a focused pilot:

For companies listening in and wondering where to begin, both CEOs have the same advice: don’t wait for the perfect solution — take a first step.

Johan suggests starting with a quick scan: “Have a first conversation. Look at what you’re doing now. Often, the low-hanging fruit is visible right away. Then build trust from there — small steps forward, but always forward.”

He compares it to the SaaS model in software: “Subscribe, try it out, see if it creates impact — before you discuss the full-scale rollout with all its complexity.”