UPS and Sealed Air Corporation have opened their Packaging Innovation Center in Louisville, Kentucky, on the UPS Supply Chain Solutions campus near the Worldport facility.

According to UPS, the new facility will help solve the packaging and shipping challenges faced by e-commerce retailers by maximizing efficiency, minimizing waste, reducing costs and increasing brand affinity. The two companies will use it to provide consulting services including package performance analysis.

“One of the biggest challenges UPS customers have with e-commerce, and across other industry segments, is that they struggle to create efficiencies and enhance profit margins while still improving consumers’ perception of their brand,” said Alan Gershenhorn, executive vice president and chief commercial officer of UPS. “UPS customers don’t just need supply chain innovation. They also need packaging innovation. Our partnership with Sealed Air, and the new Packaging Innovation Center, will allow UPS to bring a more complete set of solutions as we help customers reimagine their entire supply chains, including packaging.”

The Packaging Innovation Center occupies 6,000 square feet and showcases Sealed Air’s packaging technology such as an automated system which eliminates the need for outer cartons, an automated right-sizing system which reduces empty space in each box by as much as 60%, and a portfolio of packaging work-cell solutions.

“The at-home delivery experience is more important than it has ever been,” said Jerome Peribere, president and chief executive officer of Sealed Air. “Consumer expectations for fast, free, on-time delivery leave businesses and retailers with very little room for error. “The partnership between Sealed Air and UPS allows us to combine our decades of expertise and innovation to help our customers create those exceptional delivery experiences from the point of manufacturing all the way through to the last moment of truth in front of the consumer.”

The facility is part of the strategic partnership between the two companies announced in November 2016, according to UPS.