So agreed the Confederation of Packaging Machinery Assns. (COPAMA) at a meeting held during Pack Expo Intl. “These days, the end users are asking more and more from machinery suppliers,” said Andrew Manly, COPAMA secretary general, and the CEO of the Packaging and Processing Machinery Assn. in England. “But they still expect us to slash our margins and stack contract terms in their favor.
“But if you put these partnerships under too much pressure,” Manly continues, “then one of the partners is likely to disappear. Essentially these arrangements are between huge multi-nationals and small machinery builders, so it will not be too hard to work out which one goes” away, he stated.
The 13-member group called for a dialog from the company-to-company level to those between trade groups internationally “to ensure everyone benefits from these partnerships,” Manly stated. For more details, contact Manly at [email protected]. —AO