Research on the Market Demand and Talents Cultivation of Packaging Engineering Professionals

This article describes the characteristics of the packaging industry, development status and the demand for professional and technical personnel, combined with packaging engineering professional education, teaching practice, briefly describes the experience and understanding of some issues in the process of personnel training.
The packaging industry, for its part, is an industry that designs and manufactures various types of packaging supplies and their auxiliary materials. The objects of packaging are commodities. In today's society, as long as products (products) are produced and sold, they are inseparable from packaging. In this sense, the packaging industry is based on, supporting, and covering industries in various industrial sectors of the national economy. On the one hand, the packaging industry relies on the development of various industrial sectors, and there is no product without packaging; on the other hand, the protection function and social spirit function (promotional function) of packaging products have also promoted the development and progress of various industrial sectors. Therefore, the status and role of the packaging industry in the national economy are irreplaceable, and as people’s material and cultural needs continue to increase and the competition between international goods and markets increases after WTO participation, its status and role will become even more pronounced. . In the past 20 years of reform and opening up, China’s packaging industry has undergone significant changes and achieved world-renowned achievements. At present, it has basically formed a paper, plastic, metal, glass, printing, and various kinds of packaging machinery as its main frame, and it has been packaged in paper. Products, color printing and packaging products, plastic packaging materials and products, metal packaging materials and products, packaging and decoration, packaging machinery and other major products of independent and complete, complete range of modern industrial systems. The packaging industry has directly provided matching packaging services for more than 3 trillion domestic commodities and more than US$12 billion worth of export commodities. The total output has leapt to the 16th place in the national economy. The main packaging products are plastic braided belts, carton packaging products, and composite flexible packaging. The output of metal cans and barrels has been ranked among the highest in the world.
However, compared with the advanced countries in the world, there is still a large gap in China's packaging industry. This gap reflects the company's scale, personnel quality, product quality and grade, scientific and technological level and development capability, basic level of packaging industry, and comprehensive utilization and environment. Protection and other aspects. Among them, the shortage of scientific and technological personnel and the weak development capacity are important factors that restrict the development of China's packaging industry and technological progress. According to preliminary statistics, the scientific and technological talents (including universities and secondary school students) in the packaging industry in China currently account for only 4.9% of the total number of employees in the enterprise, which is lower than the average level of 6% in other industries in the country. There are still many gaps in quality, innovation, innovation, and the demand for talents from the modern packaging industry. Science and technology are the primary productive forces, scientific and technological talents are the carriers of scientific and technological activities, and talent cultivation is inseparable from education. Therefore, attaching importance to packaging education and accelerating personnel training (including the training and improvement of serving staff) are important strategic measures and measures to accelerate the development of China's packaging industry and improve its technological level.
For more than two decades, the development and progress of packaging education at all levels have contributed to the rapid development of the packaging industry. In particular, higher education has become the main channel for cultivating and delivering high-level professional and technical talents to the packaging industry. However, the packaging industry in China is an emerging industry after all. Packaging education is relatively late. Faced with the current trend of rapid development of science and technology and the world economy, and competition and challenges from all sides after its entry into the WTO, the education front still needs many topics. To explore, study and solve.
In recent years, in the process of education and teaching of packaging engineering, through continuous learning, learning, exploration and practice, there are some preliminary experiences and understandings of the characteristics and talents training of the profession. Here, I would like to discuss and discuss with my colleagues.
First, the packaging project is a cross-disciplinary, wide-caliber professional, but the core and the main body is the packaging design packaging project is based on packaging and packaging engineering, integration of a variety of natural science and social sciences emerging, multi-disciplinary cross The comprehensive discipline majors; at the same time, it is a systematic project combining technology, engineering, art, and humanities. Its professional content includes packaging materials, packaging containers, packaging and decoration, packaging and printing, packaging machinery, packaging technology and technology, packaging testing, packaging circulation and management, packaging regulations and other aspects of the theory and application in the packaging field, is the packaging The basis of important disciplines in industrial development.
The ultimate object of packaging engineering discipline research is packaged goods, so the package design directly or indirectly around the packaged product should be the main body and core of the packaging project. Packaging design covers a wide range of topics, including: structural design, exterior design, decoration design of packaging products, selection and application of materials surrounding packaging design, formulation of packaging process, research of packaging technology, selection or design of packaging machinery and technological transformation of packaging factories, etc. The packaging design based on the form and decorating design that many people have said so far should be said to be only the artistic design part of packaging design, or just a layer of packaging design.
Second, the choice of professional direction should be adapted to local conditions, personnel training mode can be diverse packaging engineering since it is a very wide-caliber professional, set a certain professional direction is necessary, which will help reflect the characteristics of the discipline. The setting of professional orientation should be based mainly on the status quo, development trends and planning of the packaging industry in the graduates' employment industry and the combination of the school's own conditions in order to align talent development with market needs. Our university is a provincial key engineering college. Talent training mainly serves the local regional economy. The province's packaging industry has made great progress in recent years, but there are still gaps compared with the nation's advanced provinces and cities, small-scale, decentralized, technology and equipment behind the industry structure has not been broken, the scale of the packaging industry benefits have not yet formed, packaging and technical personnel Although there is a large gap in the market demand, the type of personnel demand and the qualification of the industry are not very clear. Based on this, our school's packaging engineering temporarily sets two professional directions: packaging technology and equipment and sales packaging design. The former, based on work, taking into account art, can be said to be mainly implemented as a "generalist" education that allows students to have a more generous academic base and a more complete (but not necessarily proficient) knowledge structure in the field of packaging engineering. It is intended to enhance students' adaptability and adaptability after going to the society; sales packaging design belongs to the professional direction of partial arts, focusing on cultivating students' artistic design ability for packaging products, highlighting the proportion of art courses in teaching plans, and guiding Educating students to establish correct design ideas and master the necessary engineering and technical knowledge under the premise of minimizing the proportion of engineering basic courses to reduce their psychological and learning burden. As a matter of fact, although these students have a strong artistic pursuit and a certain art base due to their entry from the art category, their cultural quality is generally poor and it is difficult to learn engineering courses. Too many engineering foundation courses will often cause their ideological pressure and rebellious psychology. It is difficult for scholars and scholars, and the effect is not ideal. It can be said that for students in this direction, we are focusing on the education of “specialists”.
"Generalist" education and "specialist" education are two different modes of education. In general, the former has a wide range of knowledge and adaptability and adaptability; the latter has a narrower knowledge, but it is more targeted. "Generalists" and "specialists" are not immutable but can be transformed into one another. "Generalists" can become "specialists" in a certain direction. "Experts" can further expand knowledge and capabilities and can also become "Generalist." In today's society, the diversity of market demand for talents, the multiple channels of school sources, the difference in school performance, and the difference between personal hobbies and pursuits, talent training model should also be diversified, especially in the current number of college enrollment increases year by year, and emphasizes student personality In the new form of cultivating and self-selecting careers, the implementation of education in accordance with individual aptitude and classification and training should be a road to education that conforms to the situation.
Thirdly, correctly handle the relationship between technology and art, theory and actual combat, art foundation and modern design means. It is crucial for the cultivation of students’ comprehensive professional quality and ability. The objects of packaging design are goods, and the protection of goods and promotion of sales are packaging. The most important function of the product, the main task of packaging design is to meet and fulfill the functional requirements of the packaging. The first function of packaged goods (protection function) is often achieved through the use of different structural forms and engineering techniques. The second function (promotional function or social spiritual function) is mainly based on different forms and artistic expressions. . For a successful packaging design, we must be able to fully meet the functional requirements of packaging products, which are indispensable. This shows that packaging design itself is an organic combination of technology and art, and technology and art are essential for packaging design (of course not all). Factors that discard any party will result in the final design results may become "pretty but not applicable" or "applicable but not attractive" and cannot be accepted by the market and consumers. Therefore, as a designer, it should have a relatively complete knowledge structure and correct design ideas, but only for different professional training direction, technology, art, knowledge, requirements and priorities are different.
Theoretical teaching is a very important teaching link in higher education. The theory of any course is a summary and sublimation of practical experience, and it is a true reflection of the law of the development of objective things. Theory originates from practice and guides practice, and it is the foundation of ability development and the source of intellectual development. However, in the teaching activities of packaging design, we found that there is often a phenomenon of heavy practice and light theory. Some people think that packaging design is mainly based on imagination and savvy and does not need to speak too much knowledge and theory. Instead, it is based on “masters. "Apprentice" guides students. It should be said that this is a one-sided understanding of the teaching process. Of course, we cannot think that the more knowledge and theories are more useful, the more knowledge is not equal to the ability, and the conversion of knowledge into ability has to be practiced repeatedly. Therefore, attaching importance to theoretical teaching, strengthening practical training, and strengthening the connection between theory and practice are talent cultivation. The important guarantee.
The relationship between the basics of fine arts and modern design methods should also be properly understood and treated in packaging design. On this issue, there have been two different views and tendencies. Some teachers and students believe that as a packaging art design, the key is to have a solid foundation of fine arts. The “hand kung fu” must be perfect, thus ignoring modern design methods (mainly referring to The application of computer-aided design; and another view is: the mastery and application of modern design means is the key to determine the effect of packaging design, and how the foundation of art is not very important. Through repeated discussions, most people have basically reached a consensus on this issue: a solid foundation of art, correct design ideas, good artistic accomplishments, and strong computer application capabilities are essential quality and skills for packaging designers. Their perfect combination can fully demonstrate the designer's design ideas and concepts, and can be more, faster, better, and provincial packaging design.
Fourth, education must have a sense of advancement. Today's education, in order to survive and develop, must face the society and serve the market, but education as a superstructure must have its own laws. In order to cultivate the builders of the 21st century, educators must have a sense of advancement, be good at analyzing and predicting the development trend of future disciplines and industries, and the characteristics of the industry's demand for talents, so that personnel training can be "based on the current and look to the future." It is not easy to do this, but as an educator, this awareness should be possessed. To this end, in addition to the need to diligently study the business, teach and educate people, and do a good job of their own duties, they should actively care about the status quo, dynamics, and development trends of the domestic and international packaging industry, and strive to study and study cutting-edge knowledge and theory in this discipline. Pay attention to the application and research results of new materials, new processes, and new technologies in modern science and technology in the field of packaging, and continue to enrich and update the content of teaching; at the same time, we must seriously improve teaching methods and teaching methods, and strive to cultivate students' sense of innovation And innovation ability, and constantly improve its overall quality, so that our packaging education can adapt to the 21st century packaging industry requirements for high-quality personnel. (Chen Baolin, Department of Packaging and Food Engineering, Sichuan Institute of Technology)