In search of standards

The conversation revolved around recipe-driven manufacturing, that holy grail of forward thinking packaged goods manufacturers wherein each piece of packaging machinery in a line receives automatically all the data it needs to shift from one SKU to another. This particular engineer had recently installed a packaging line whose controls platform was designed to facilitate recipe-driven manufacturing. It's a line on which the Enterprise Resource Planning software, or ERP, is fully capable of sending data out to the packaging line to facilitate changeovers from one SKU to another with minimal operator involvement. In addition to supplying key pieces of packaging equipment in the line, the engineer also shouldered controls integration responsibilities. But the "top-floor-to-shop-floor" controls solution he had installed is largely a customized one, even though most observers and automation analysts these days are advocating off-the-shelf solutions because they are scaleable and can be replicated cost-effectively in other plants. When I asked why he didn't opt for an off-the-shelf solution, he replied that it was largely because not enough of today's packaging machinery OEMs are in agreement where standards are concerned.

"There needs to be more agreement among machinery OEMs on a standard interface for exchange of data," he said. "They need to say, in effect, 'We'll format our machines' data tables to match the agreed-upon standard.'"

Maybe packaging machinery OEMs at this year's Pack Expo International should spend a little time exchanging ideas about standards as they visit with their peers in the next aisle over.