Sonoco Products Co., Hartsville, S.C., opened iPS Studio, a state-of-the-art research, development and innovation center that connects consumer and market insights to the invention of new packaging solutions, all under one roof.

The $12 million Innovative Packaging Solutions (iPS) studio includes a consumer interaction space enabling live, direct observation of consumers interacting with products and packaging in retail, kitchen, living and bathroom environments. Other features entail collaborative spaces where experts can interact with the latest technologies to turn ideas into packaging concepts, technology for the development of structural design and manufacturing options, a pilot plant to test manufacturing performance, state-of-the-art printing capability and rapid prototyping labs that aid in developing engineered prototypes that can then be tested in real world simulation spaces.