How collaborative virtual environments are redefining packaging design

Nefab's Alexandre Coimbra predicts the future of virtual testing

March 24, 2026

2 min read

Key Highlights

By integrating customer product models with packaging designs in a shared virtual environment, engineers can identify potential failure points and optimize designs long before a physical prototype is ever built.
Utilizing virtual testing to simulate real-world transport hazards like vibration and shock allows for earlier interventions, significantly shortening project lead times.
Alexandre Coimbra’s decade-long journey across international operations—from France to the UK, Brazil, and the Netherlands—highlights how global experience fuels the development of specialized services like Nefab’s Last Mile Optimization.

Sign of Nefab on the building in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. Nefab is a Canadian company manufactures wooden shipping storage boxes.

Alexandre Coimbra is senior packaging engineer at Nefab. He started working for Nefab in France as a trainee in 2009. He wanted to be part of a packaging company with a global footprint. He has worked in Nefab's operations in the United Kingdom and Brazil and has now established himself in Son, Netherlands, where he is involved in developing the company's Last Mile Optimization service (Figure 1). He offered insight on digital twins.

The definition of a digital twin can vary, based primarily on the application. What's your definition, and how are digital twins utilized within the development and commissioning processes, and what impact have digital twins had on reducing project lead times or improving reliability?

Figure 1: Alexandre Coimbra, senior packaging engineer, Nefab.

Alexandre Coimbra, senior packaging engineer, Nefab: Virtual testing, as we call it at Nefab, is a form of advanced simulation. While we do not yet use full digital twins, we are actively exploring how this concept could be integrated into our development processes.

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For us, the concept of a digital twin is closely linked to collaboration with customers by connecting their latest product models with our packaging designs. Having access to the latest product models while customers can access our packaging designs allows both sides to work on a shared virtual environment. Combined with our virtual testing capabilities, this makes it possible to simulate transport hazards such as vibration and shock and predict potential failure points before a physical prototype is available. This enables engineers to optimize packaging earlier in the process and can significantly accelerate time to market.

About the Author

Mike Bacidore

Editor in Chief

Mike Bacidore is chief editor of Control Design and has been an integral part of the Endeavor Business Media editorial team since 2007. Previously, he was editorial director at Hughes Communications and a portfolio manager of the human resources and labor law areas at Wolters Kluwer. Bacidore holds a BA from the University of Illinois and an MBA from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. He is an award-winning columnist, earning multiple regional and national awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors. He may be reached at [email protected]