Many trends in general automation have impacted the packaging industry. Some of these include the multiple benefits of better efficiency and increased speed and accuracy of automation systems in general, leading to improved packaging machinery. At the same time, there is more concern with sustainable practices and design, which means more emphasis on biodegradable materials used in packaging applications as well.
Design World editors recently asked a number of leading manufacturers involved in the packaging industry about automation trends they’re seeing. Here’s what they had to say.
Meet the experts
Brian Burke | Product manager III • Bishop-Wisecarver Corp.
Thomas Burke | Global strategic advisor • CC Link Partner Association (CLPA)
Chris Caldwell | Product manager – material handling • Yaskawa Motoman
Brian Dengel | General manager • KHK USA Inc.
Michael Giunta | VP of sales and marketing • Macron Dynamics Inc.
Mike Korkowski | Operations manager • LinMot USA
Troy Manley | Sales Director — Food and Packaging North America • Festo
Alex Marques | Product manager • Bishop-Wisecarver Corp.
Gian Sachdev | Marketing head – Americas demand generation • Cognex
Patrick Varley | Product marketing manager — robotics • Mitsubishi Electric Automation Inc.
Ori Yudilevich | CTO • MaterialsZone
Describe your involvement with or support of packaging.
Dengel: KHK USA is a supplier of gearing into the design of OEM and bespoke packaging systems. Gears will always be a necessary component of packaging equipment.
Manley: The rapidly evolving landscape demands that our team stays on the cutting edge of technology and knowledge. Our role is multifaceted, extending beyond conventional sales responsibilities to being the crucial link between our customers and new product development teams.
In the dynamic area of packaging, trends shape the industry. Currently, the most prevalent trend is the electrification of equipment, driven by the primary goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions and enhancing facility efficiency. This shift poses challenges, particularly when transitioning from legacy pneumatic or mechanical systems. Issues such as a skills gap and staffing constraints become clear. It’s in response to these challenges that Festo has experienced a surge in demand for our engineering support services.
At the heart of our response to this demand is the deployment of our Automation Technology Engineers. These experts are now more extensively engaged in a spectrum of activities, ranging from conceptual work to machine design and system architecture projects. By leveraging this high level of support, customers not only ensure the integration of the right technology for their specific applications but also gain the assurance of support from the extensive Festo Global Network.
What trends do you see in the packaging industry?
Korkowski: The current trend is to go fast, go green, and go electric. LinMot is part of many large, medium, and small OEMs in their packaging solutions. Case packers, fillers, diverters, stackers, pick and place robots are some of the solutions we offer our customers.
Giunta: Automation has helped reduce the number of accidents in a packaging environment. The human body is not designed well to stack or de-stack bags and boxes over 50 lb in a repetitive and continuous fashion. Due to the reduction in available workforce, companies can focus on using the tactile strengths of a human at the right locations in a product-manufacturing process. The next jump in the industry is to be able to offer a lower cost, higher value, and competitive packaging solution.
Burke: Packaging equipment continues to be a critical industry for increasing productive throughput for market leading brands as they scale to meet the needs of an expanding population. Packaging machines keep getting faster to provide more capacity per hour. A major shift in packaging machine design is happening with the adoption of linear motors as the driving mechanism where magnetic movers can be positioned independently from each other around an oval or rectangular motion system. The movers offer a greater degree of flexibility in motion and at much higher speeds than belt-driven motion system designs.
Varley: With respect to robotic automation, there are numerous areas of opportunity — as many of our robots are deployed in packing applications with both producers and co-packers in the food and beverage sector. As with traditional manufacturing, the availability and cost of labor has presented many challenges for this industry. For fresh produce handling, any delays in processing and packing the produce results in a shorter shelf life and missed deliveries. Robotic automation allows users to accurately predict both output and cost. We anticipate quite a bit of activity in this sector, especially as the capabilities of necessary third-party devices, such as grippers, 2D vision and 3D vision, increases while their cost decreases.
Yudilevich: As eco-friendly practices become a growing trend, with regulations and consumer awareness putting pressure on the packaging industry to develop and utilize more sustainable packaging solutions, MaterialsZone actively contributes by offering an innovative, data-driven, and target-oriented approach to biodegradable material development for packaging. Our involvement in the packaging industry centers on supporting sustainability, focusing on biodegradability and eco-friendly materials.
Varley: Mitsubishi Electric Automation recently worked with industry leaders SICK, Inc. and Realtime Robotics to put together a 3D bin picking application with multiple robots operating in a collision-free environment. This resulted in a high throughput-per-square-foot ratio and we see cooperative efforts such as this becoming more common.
Yudilevich: Traditionally, the design and development of packaging materials involve constraints on the supply chain, processing techniques, and cost, often addressed through trial-and-error methods. We have developed an efficient workflow that minimizes the reliance on trial-and-error methodologies. This streamlined approach accelerates R&D efforts by reducing the number of experiments and iterations required to achieve the desired biodegradable material. By embracing this data-driven methodology, we align with the growing trend in the packaging industry toward sustainable and eco-friendly solutions.
Marques: Our DualVee Motion Technology has been a staple in the packaging industry for decades; manual guides for adjusting settings, bearings, and actuators for high-speed motion, and multi-axis systems for palletizing. One trend we’ve noticed in the packaging industry among so many others is a renewed emphasis on durability and long life. That’s part of the reason why we developed the LEAP award-winning DualVee solid lubricant guide wheels. It allows our customers to have a solution that lasts for 2.5 times as many cycles as our technology, which already leads the market.
Caldwell: Robotic packaging is a well-established application with decades of installs. There are a variety of specific tasks, from case-erection to secondary case packing, with primary packaging typically requiring the highest speed manipulators. Trends in this area are largely driven by an increase in 3D vision and AI solutions allowing for robotic packaging of kits or mixed items within a single secondary case. E-commerce fulfillment and other 3PL or distribution centers can greatly enhance their scalability by deploying these intelligent robotic solutions.
Burke: As a leader in discrete manufacturing, we’re also a leader in delivering technology and components for packaging. That means the delivery of excellent PLCs and motion controls (in the form of amplifiers and servo drives, and inverters) as well as robotics. Advantages come in the form of quality of products (measured in failure parts per million); faster and more precise performance; and compatibility — delivering the highest performance network communications, but also supporting other industry standards.
Sachdev: We see four trends in the packaging industry; operational efficiency, digitalization, personalized manufacturing, and sustainability — all areas where machine vision can play a key role. We also see increased reliance on robotic automation. Food and beverage and pharmaceutical industries, for example, use pick-and-place robots to boost efficiency and quality while minimizing contamination risks.
Yet another trend is manufacturers increasing production of personalized items to target consumers more precisely. While effective, personalization presents major challenges; shorter production runs, more batches, and more frequent changeovers, for instance. To address that challenge, manufacturers are turning to vision systems that use edge learning technology, as they can be trained on new images in a matter of minutes, keeping downtime to a minimum.
What about packaging in the food and beverage industry?
Burke: Bishop-Wisecarver introduced a linear guide bearing with a food grade H1 rated solid polymer lubricant that eliminates foreign material ingress. The solid polymer fills the entire internal cavity and ensures that the lubricating oil stays contained inside the bearing where it is most needed. This innovation can extend the usable service life of linear guide bearings in harsh food grade applications with frequent washdown cleaning requirements. An additional use of this innovation is that the solid polymer guide wheel bearing is well suited for extremely dirty or contaminated environments because foreign materials have no space to occupy on the inside of the bearing.
Filed Under: Trends, Motion Control Tips
