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Advanced control requires top-flight schooling

I’ve had packaging controls and integration on the brain lately. It’s hardly any wonder.

Not only am I finishing up some remarks on packaging automation trends I’ve been asked to deliver at the annual ARC World Industry Forum. I’m also putting the finishing touches on lining up speakers who will deliver presentations at the Packaging Automation Forum, a unique event scheduled May 4 in Chicago that is jointly sponsored by this magazine and by Automation World, our sister magazine.

So what’s shaking in the world of packaging controls and integration, that occasionally mysterious but all-important place where backplanes, DIN rails, and distributed I/O are all the rage? It was put to me this way in a recent conversation with a very large food manufacturer.

“It used to be that you didn’t need to know much more than how many cases went out the door each shift or each day. Now we need to focus on uptime and productivity and debottlenecking. Knowing why we didn’t put out more cases per day is more important than knowing how many cases went out that day. What are the root causes of downtime and lost productivity? These are the metrics we’re after now.”

The market forces driving our business so relentlessly in this direction—where integration, automation, and real-time data are so important—aren’t about to let up any time soon. Let’s face it, packaging machinery has got to be smarter than it ever was. And so does the next generation of technicians, machine maintenance experts, and engineers. Which brings me to Nick Wilson and Purdue University Calumet. As some of you know, this Hammond, IN-based satellite of the internationally respected Purdue University system has what might be the first four-year Mechatronics program in the U.S. Had Wilson, president of Morrison Container Handling Solutions and vice president of PMMI’s Board of Directors, not pushed for the creation of the program, it might not exist today.

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