Success Through Collaboration: Bosch & G2 at Automotive Packaging Summit

Nick Riedl (The Packaging School): The Automotive Packaging Summit is a one-of-a-kind event where industry leaders and packaging experts come together to address the unique challenges of OEM and tier one supplier logistics. 

At the 2025 Summit, Blake Watkins of Bosch USA and John Onaga of G2 Supply delivered a joint presentation highlighting the successful collaboration between their companies—a partnership that began after connecting at the 2024 Summit.

We caught up with Blake and John to learn more about their success story and to explore how purposeful collaboration can turn even the toughest challenges into opportunities for innovation.

Video Transcript

Blake Watkins (Bosch USA): On my end, basically, we were at this summit one year ago. We came with a very specific problem. They had the speed networking event last year, which I was a part of; John was a part of. And John told me there, he said, “What we do is solve problems.” And I said, “Well, I have a problem.”

Here's the problem. This part is referred to by my boss as a "bowling ball with spikes" (pictured above).

And you can kind of see why. It's not the heaviest part in the world in comparison to some of the things that we package, but it's relatively heavy. And because of the size of the part and some of the other features here, it's very hard to pack this unitized—from both an ergonomic perspective, from the actual person doing the physical labor of packing the part, and then getting it transported to the customer with, you know, that packaging intact.

And this is not the only size of this part. There's variability on the length of the bolts, the length of the canister, the length of the rod, the shape of the plate. So, it's not like we could just get foam and say, here's the one size. And we also needed this to be a repeatable solution that was easy on the packer to do over and over again when they have an order of these.

John Onaga (G2 Supply): From there, we made a prototype in a week . . . set up a follow-up meeting . . . it was totally the wrong product for the first try.

But it started us down a six-month+ long process where, you know, we were testing to failure and using it the old school way with no CAD data, doing this solid physical parts, highly variable part family. And, I mean, just endless pursuit of trying to win the day to get them the right solution. 

Blake Watkins: Basically, what G2 was able to do, and John can speak more on it, was develop a corrugated insert that, sort of, took into account everything that it could be in the range of variability.

So, we have two different sizes of the insert, which, you know, there's 30+ different variations of this part. So, the fact that we have two versions long and a short that can accommodate this one and anything that may change in that scope of variability.

John Onaga: And to piggyback off Blake's comments, I mean, we went with a sustainable solution with recycled cardboard. So, the board grade is over 60% recycled content. So, I mean, from a [sustainable perspective] . . . 

Blake Watkins: . . . and that's a big deal to Bosch too [sustainable solution]. . .

John Onaga: . . . and that's why foam didn't work. I mean, the original solution I brought you was EPE foam and you're like, “Hey, great job. Appreciate the speed. Can't use this product.” So back to the drawing board, and I mean, that's just . . . 

Blake Watkins: . . . and it was a question of cost too . . .

John Onaga: . . . yes.

Blake Watkins: I mean, having a corrugated solution brought the cost down big time. 

John Onaga: Big time. 

We used the ISTA 3A Drop Test as the standard; that's the Bosch standard. So, actually it was really a great learning experience for me being involved with this project to go through the ISTA 3A process.

And we were testing to failure. So, when this part falls from 36 inches, I can tell you what it sounds like when it's not good. And I can tell you what it finally sounds like when you've dropped it, what feels like hundreds of times, and you get that thump instead of a thud, and you're like, yes, we won. We got it. We nailed it.

Blake Watkins: We had to find something that fit that variability that we were saying before. And, we had, you know, there were other ways that maybe we could package one of these if we used a, you know, a fitted foam solution or something like that.

But you can't bring those into the warehouse in mass—creates a storage issue. It also creates a production issue because we don't have that many lines that we can process certain types of packaging through. So, it needed to be something that could be done at any line easily. 

We've been through revisions of packaging for this for years, and we've never really been able to land on one that satisfied all of that—until now.

John Onaga: From my perspective, I'm just thankful that, you know, Automotive Packaging Summit is here and we have the ability to come to this show and network and build these relationships that help drive innovative solutions for the marketplace. Because at the end of the day, that's what we're all here for, is to make real impact in this industry. 

Blake Watkins: I would just agree with what John said.

I mean, we were fortunate enough to come to this show, and to me, the fact that we can solve a problem like this is just proof that things like speed networking, the connections you can make face to face with people in a regional setting like this, where everybody has the same touchpoint, as we've said, for automotive packaging—it's a great way to connect and it's a great success story. And I'm thankful to G2 for being able to help us do this. And I'm thankful to the Summit for bringing us together.

John Onaga: Yes. Couldn't reiterate what Blake said even more. 

Blake Watkins: I’d pat you on the back . . . 

John Onaga: . . . yeah, but you’ve got that heavy part. You can't do that.

Blake Watkins: Yeah.

Nick Riedl: We'd like to thank Blake and John for taking the time to speak with us.

To learn more about Automotive Packaging Summit and to find out how you can get involved in the 2026 Summit, you can visit the event page here.

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