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Kiwiplan (Advantive)

Kiwiplan (Advantive) at a glance
VendorAdvantive
HeadquartersAdvantive: Tampa, Florida, USA (Kiwiplan originated in New Zealand)
OwnershipAdvantive (backed by TA Associates and ST6); acquired from Illinois Tool Works in 2022
DeploymentOn-premises (plant-level); hosted/cloud options via Advantive
Target marketCorrugated sheet and box plants, folding carton, plastics and specialty packaging; single-plant converters to multi-plant groups
IndustriesCorrugated packaging, folding carton, flexible/plastics packaging, specialty packaging
PricingNot published; modular, quote-based licensing
Websiteadvantive.com/products/kiwiplan

What Kiwiplan is

Kiwiplan is a production planning, scheduling and shop-floor execution suite for packaging manufacturers, marketed by Advantive. Corrugated is its home turf, where it carries an order from entry through machine scheduling, production data collection and shipping. What it is not is a general-purpose business system. Accounting sits outside the product, and many sites run Kiwiplan alongside a separate financial ERP.

Company and product background

The product originated in New Zealand and has been developed for corrugated and packaging plants for several decades. The industrial conglomerate Illinois Tool Works owned the business for years before Advantive acquired it in July 2022. Advantive, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, is a private-equity-backed group formed by TA Associates and ST6 that consolidates specialty manufacturing and distribution software brands; Advantzware, another corrugated-focused product, sits in the same portfolio. Advantive states that four of the five largest packaging companies in the world run Kiwiplan and cites more than 500 production installations globally.

Functional scope

Sales order processing runs through Enterprise Sales Processing, corrugator and converting scheduling is automated, and a packaging-specific manufacturing execution system collects machine data in real time and handles quality management. Inventory and logistics modules track roll stock, finished-goods unit loads and truck scheduling. Reporting across plants comes from a data warehouse and the DART analytics tool. General ledger, payables and payroll are out of scope and arrive from a companion financial system.

Target market and industries

Corrugated sheet and box plants are the core installed base. Folding carton producers, plastics and flexible packaging converters and specialty packaging operations are served as well. In the United States, Kiwiplan is among the most widely installed systems in corrugated manufacturing, with users ranging from independent single-plant converters to large multi-plant integrated groups.

Deployment and pricing

Deployment has traditionally been on-premises at plant level, close to the machines the software schedules and monitors. Advantive also offers hosted and cloud options, and the choice usually comes down to plant connectivity, IT staffing and how many sites need to share planning data. Pricing is not published; licensing is quoted per module and site. Because the suite is modular, the planning, MES, quality and logistics components a plant actually licenses drive the total.

Where it wins, where it loses

Strictly speaking Kiwiplan sits at the edge of what this directory covers: a planning and execution suite without classic financial modules, operated as the plant-level layer beside a corporate financial system. Choose it if you run corrugated or converting assets and scheduling depth is what decides your margins. On that axis, its corrugated logic and installed base are the reasons it keeps appearing on US shortlists.

Leave it alone if you are looking for one system to close the books in, or if you cannot fund the interface work, because integration to the financial ERP is core project scope rather than an afterthought. Two questions belong in the first meeting: who owns which data between plant and corporate systems, and where the roadmap goes under private-equity portfolio consolidation. A structured selection process keeps the operational fit of Kiwiplan separate from the surrounding system landscape it requires.

What the Kiwiplan (Advantive) website looks like

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Screenshot of the Kiwiplan (Advantive) vendor homepage

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Frequently asked questions

Is Kiwiplan a complete ERP system with financials?

No. The suite concentrates on order management, scheduling, manufacturing execution and logistics for packaging plants, and it includes no general ledger, payables or payroll functionality. Most sites therefore pair it with a separate financial ERP at the corporate level, which makes the integration between the two a core part of project scope rather than a technical detail to settle later.

Who owns Kiwiplan today, and which plants typically run it?

Kiwiplan has been part of Advantive since mid-2022, when Advantive acquired the business from Illinois Tool Works; Advantive is a Tampa-based software group backed by the investors TA Associates and ST6, and it also owns Advantzware, another corrugated-industry product. The product line continues to be developed and sold under its own name within that portfolio. The core installed base consists of corrugated sheet and box plants, where the suite handles corrugator and converting scheduling, and it extends to folding carton producers, plastics and flexible packaging converters and specialty packaging operations. Advantive states that several of the largest packaging groups in the world run the software across multiple plants.

How is Kiwiplan deployed?

Historically on-premises at each plant, close to the machines it schedules and monitors, with hosted and cloud deployment options available from Advantive for companies that prefer not to run local infrastructure. Plant connectivity, IT staffing and the number of sites that need to share planning data usually decide the answer.

What should US buyers check before shortlisting Kiwiplan?

Start by defining which modules are actually needed, since planning, MES, quality and logistics components are licensed separately and pricing is quote-based. Plan the interface to the financial ERP next, and clarify data ownership between plant and corporate systems while the deal is still being negotiated. It is also worth asking Advantive about the product roadmap, because portfolio consolidation under private-equity ownership can shift development priorities over time.