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Blister Pack Collective gains Papela's converter business. PulPac today announces Papela's participation in the Blister Pack Collective, the cross-industry initiative created by PA Consulting, a Jacobs company, and PulPac to advance Dry Molded Fiber blister packaging. Papela will act as the Collective's first converter partner and will contribute converter expertise on the development of Dry Molded Fiber blister packaging for nutraceuticals, supplements, and healthcare-related products. Image; Dry Molded Fiber blister pack sample. Blister packs remain one of the most widely used formats for tablets and capsules, often relying on plastic or other materials that are difficult to recycle. The Blister Pack Collective brings together partners across the value chain to accelerate the development of fiber-based alternatives that can reduce plastic use while supporting the performance, protection, and scalability required for commercial adoption. Papela further strengthens a Collective that already includes leading consumer health companies such as Haleon, Opella, Bayer Consumer Health and also Sanofi Rx. Its participation adds a focused perspective on supplement applications, as well as practical converter insight into how fiber-based blister packaging can move closer to commercial adoption. "For many brands, the challenge is not only finding a more sustainable blister format, but making the transition practical. Through the Blister Pack Collective, we are working with PA and PulPac to help bring fiber-based blister packaging closer to market," says Sander Volden, Founder and CEO of Papela. "Dry Molded Fiber is technology meant to be shared, and the Blister Pack Collective is a strong example of how collaboration can accelerate real progress. Papela is bringing valuable market focus and a clear converter perspective to the initiative, helping us explore how fiber-based blister packaging can meet specific product and market needs at scale," says Viktor Wingård Börjesson, COO at PulPac. "The Collective approach is designed to accelerate learning and reduce barriers to innovation by bringing together partners with complementary expertise. Papela adds another relevant market perspective and strengthens the practical requirements needed to take fiber-based blister packaging from development toward adoption," says Keith Thornley, commercial lead for Dry Molded Fiber Collectives at PA Consulting. The Blister Pack Collective was created by PA Consulting and PulPac to accelerate the development of Dry Molded Fiber blister packs. The initiative brings together partners from across pharma, consumer health, FMCG, and related industries to reduce reliance on conventional plastic blister formats and support the transition toward more fiber-based packaging solutions. Dry Molded Fiber is PulPac's patented technology for turning renewable fibers into high-performance packaging through a dry forming process. For blister applications, the technology opens opportunities to reduce plastic content while supporting the detailed forming, barrier integration, consumer desirability, and production scalability required for tablet and capsule packaging. Together, PA Consulting, PulPac, and Papela will work to further develop and validate Dry Molded Fiber blister packaging for selected supplement applications. Media contacts: Viktor Wingård Börjesson, Chief Operating Officer PulPac, [email protected] About Papela Packaging Papela is a European sustainable contract packaging organization. While heavily focused on developing innovative fiber-based blister packaging solutions, Papela's comprehensive services will also include sacheting, stick packs, bottling, and more for nutraceuticals, supplements, and healthcare-related products. As packaging and regulations become increasingly complex and resource-heavy, Papela aims to be the safe, strategic, and preferred partner for brands and contract manufacturers. By managing the entire packaging service, Papela empowers clients to stay focused on their core products while ensuring their transition to sustainable packaging is future-proof beyond the 2030 PPWR regulations. Learn more at https://www.papelapack.com/. About PA Consulting PA Consulting believes in the power of ingenuity to build a positive human future. As strategies, technologies and innovation collide, Transparency International create opportunity from complexity. Its diverse teams combine deep expertise, innovative thinking and breakthrough technologies to help clients adapt, transform and achieve enduring results across consumer and manufacturing, defense and security, energy and utilities, financial services, government and public services, health and life sciences, and transport. As a Jacobs company, Transparency International combine strategic advisory, design and delivery as a single partner across the full program lifecycle. Together, its global team of approximately 47,000 help clients shape investment decisions, solve complex challenges and deliver lasting outcomes. Discover more at paconsulting.com and connect with PA on LinkedIn and X. PA. Bringing Ingenuity to Life. About PulPac PulPac is the home of Dry Molded Fiber - an industrial fiber-forming technology for rigid, high-speed packaging with a responsible footprint, using minimal water and energy. Invented, patented and built to be shared, Dry Molded Fiber scales from ideas to production through a global ecosystem of partners and licensees, giving manufacturers and brands the speed, quality, and unit economics that help drive the shift toward packaging that just makes good sense. Learn more at www.pulpac.com. About the Blister Pack Collective The Blister Pack Collective is a cross-industry initiative created by PA Consulting and PulPac to accelerate the development of Dry Molded Fiber blister packaging. The Collective brings together partners across the value chain to reduce plastic use and support the transition toward more fiber-based blister pack solutions. Learn more at: https://www.paconsulting.com/global-shifts/regenerative-futures/blister-pack-collective Additional images Image; Sander Volden (Papela) and Viktor Wingård Börjesson (PulPac) at PulPac HQ discussing Dry Molded Fiber blister pack. Image; Dry Molded Fiber blister pack development.

Vertice's Johan Mills: how RPA transforms procurement. August 26, 2026 Vertice's VP of Product Strategy, Johan Mills, discusses how RPA cuts admin errors, bridges legacy ERPs and frees teams for strategic sourcing Robotic process automation (RPA) is transforming modern procurement functions by automating repetitive, rule-based tasks across source-to-pay operations. From purchase order generation and three-way invoice matching to supplier onboarding data validation, software bots handle high-volume administrative workflows with speed and precision. By eliminating manual data entry and reducing processing errors, RPA accelerates cycle times and frees strategic teams to focus on supplier relationships, negotiations and value creation. To explore how procurement leaders can best leverage automation today, Johan Mills, VP of Product Strategy at Vertice, brings deep expertise across consulting, industry leadership and technology. Johan previously led global engagements at PA Consulting, directed portfolio cost initiatives at Liberty Global and established the procurement function from the ground up at Thoughtworks. In this Q&A, he breaks down how to balance RPA and AI, bridge legacy systems and shift procurement from transactional admin to strategic value. 1. Historically, why has the procurement function been so heavily weighed down by manual, administrative "grunt work"? Procurement started as a cost-control and compliance function, so most roles were built around processing POs, chasing invoices, and getting contracts in order rather than shaping strategy and driving business value. Manual admin work stuck around because it was cheap to ignore and hard to fix without disrupting the ERP everyone already relied on. 2. Before automation entered the picture, how did this reliance on manual data entry and document chasing impact a company's ability to be strategic? Teams spent much of their time on data entry, matching invoices to POs, and email chasing, which left almost no time for supplier strategy or spend analysis. Strategic sourcing became a side project squeezed in around the admin, not the core focus. 3. What was the macro shifting point in global supply chains that made legacy, manual procurement processes entirely unsustainable for modern business? COVID-19 exposed how fragile global supply chains were, and the volatility that followed (shortages, freight costs, geopolitical disruption) meant procurement needed real-time visibility and speed that manual processes simply couldn't deliver. Static spreadsheets and email chains couldn't keep up with a world where risk was changing week to week. The best procurement people have always had strategic instincts, they just never had the hours to use them. Now they do. Johan Mills, VP of Product Strategy at Vertice 4. When an organisation decides to modernise procurement, what are the classic gateway processes where RPA delivers the quickest wins? PO creation, invoice processing, invoice matching, supplier onboarding - and generally anything with a high degree of data entry - are the classic starting points since they're high-volume, repetitive, and rule-based. These are the processes where a bot can follow the same steps a person does today without needing judgement calls. 5. Beyond just saving time, how does deploying RPA fundamentally protect a procurement department from human error and compliance risks? A bot doesn't skip steps or make typos, so error rates on matching or data entry essentially disappear. Procurement is able to get a full audit trail, which makes compliance a lot less painful. 6. Why is RPA often considered the perfect bridge for companies that rely on older, rigid legacy enterprise software (ERPs) that they can't afford to completely replace? RPA works on top of whatever system you already have, it just clicks and types the way a person would. So you get automation without ripping out an old ERP that may cost millions to replace. RPA in Procurement * In Deloitte's Global Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) Survey, top-performing "Digital Master" procurement teams are 10 times more likely to have fully deployed RPA solutions compared to low-maturity peers. * According to Deloitte's 2025 Global CPO Survey, RPA adoption grew by 31% year-over-year as procurement organisations combined software bots with improved process orchestration, intelligent intake and agentic workflows to handle end-to-end tasks. * According to research by McKinsey & Company, 56% of all source-to-pay tasks can be fully or largely automated using existing technologies. * In The Hackett Group's Procurement Key Issues research, 84% of procurement organisations that deployed robotic process automation reported that the technology met or exceeded their performance expectations. 7. RPA is highly efficient but notoriously rigid. At what specific point does a procurement process become too complex, messy, or unpredictable for a standard RPA bot to handle? RPA breaks down the second something needs judgement; an odd contract clause, an exception nobody coded for. It follows rules but it doesn't reason. That's not a flaw, it's just the ceiling of what the tool is built to do. 8. For an executive trying to map out a tech roadmap, how should they define the division of labour between RPA (the muscle) and Artificial Intelligence (the brain)? Most companies treat RPA and AI as different points on the same spectrum, more complex versus less complex. They're not. RPA is for tasks that stay the same, AI is for tasks that change, and the split should be based on volatility, not difficulty. 9. What is the ideal framework or rule of thumb for determining whether a bottleneck in the procurement cycle needs a simple, rule-based RPA fix or a cognitive AI solution? The ideal framework should focus on how much the input varies. High volume and low variability, automate with RPA. High volume and high variability, use AI. Low volume and high variability, leave it with a person since it's not worth automating either way. 10. How is the concept of "Intelligent Automation" - where RPA and AI are combined - changing the way enterprises handle highly unstructured data like complex vendor contracts or global spend analysis? The bottleneck used to be people reading documents. Now it's trust in what the model pulled out of them. Intelligent automation doesn't just save time on contract review; it turns it from something reactive into something that surfaces risk before anyone goes looking for it. 11. There is a persistent myth that automation is designed to replace people. How does automation actually elevate the role of procurement professionals rather than eliminate them? Automation doesn't just free up time; it finally gives people room to prove what they're actually capable of. The best procurement people have always had strategic instincts; they just never had the hours to use them. Now they do. RPA is for tasks that stay the same, AI is for tasks that change, and the split should be based on volatility, not difficulty. Johan Mills, VP of Product Strategy at Vertice 12. Now that software bots can handle the transactional heavy lifting, what skills define the modern, successful procurement leader? What are they focusing on instead? Negotiation. Supplier relationships. Risk. These are the core strategic elements that are left once the admin has gone. The best procurement leaders are also now spending more time managing relationships with the business since that can help alleviate downstream activity. 13. For organisations struggling to scale these technologies, what is the biggest non-technical hurdle - cultural, structural, or strategic - that holds them back? The biggest hurdle is usually structural: automation gets piloted within one team or one process, but scaling it requires cross-functional buy-in and data standards that no single procurement team can mandate on its own. Without that broader organisational alignment, even successful pilots stay stuck as isolated wins rather than becoming the new default way of working. 14. If Procurement Mag look five to ten years down the road, what does a completely optimised, automated procurement function look like? What is the ultimate takeaway for companies still sitting on the fence? The trajectory is fairly well established at this point. Transactional procurement work continues to move to software, and the functions that adapt fastest are reallocating that capacity toward strategic sourcing and risk management rather than cutting headcount. The companies still deciding whether to start are, in effect, choosing to spend longer on the work that's already being automated everywhere else. Company Portals