"Look at today's beverage lines," says Dan Throne of Bosch Rexroth, one of the technology providers participating in the OMAC demos. "They're ninety percent conveyors and 10 percent machines. Why? Because, historically at least, each machine on the line might come from a different country and have a different controller."
What the OMAC demos showed is that a case filler, labeler, and case packer, for example, can communicate back and forth in real time to share information about each other's status. This makes it possible for them to be synchronized so tightly that it's as if all three discrete pieces of equipment are being controlled by one controller.
"This has the potential to greatly reduce the amount of conveyor connections between packaging machines," says Throne. "And if there's anything the packaged goods companies are looking for, it's a way to minimize the footprint occupied by their packaging machines and packaging lines."
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