Edited for clarity, here's what he had to say:
Better data acquisition would be a good place to start. Most of the equipment out there includes data acquisition of one kind or another. The data goes to a SCADA-type system that runs on an external PC linked to that supplier's packaging machine. But analysis of downtime isn't as clear as it could be. What specific causes is the data acquisition system tracking? For example, if a kick-out clutch is activated each time there's a jam on an infeed star wheel, does your data acquisition system track the number of times this occurs and the amount of downtime incurred each time? I find it's helpful to ask machine suppliers for a detailed list of all the items that are monitored. Most of them don't have a readily available list.
Separately, I also talked with an engineer at a machine builder who said that the increased functionality of controls technology along with a gradual but steady decline in the cost of that technology was helpful for buyers of packaging machinery both large and small. Here's a synopsis of what he had to say:
We build a three-axis servo-driven flow wrapper that is able to offer a small manufacturer such things as no-product/no film feed. The benefit to the customer: reduced film waste. Because we put a sensor on the same machine that detects if a product coming though the heat-seal jaws is positioned in such a way that it's going to get crushed by the jaws, we're able to signal the controller to stop the sealing jaws from closing for one cycle. The benefit to the customer: product that would have been damaged in the absence of that sensor-to-controller connection can now be sent to rework. The smallest of companies can benefit from these newly available functionalities, which are not cost-prohibitive to them because the cost of the controls technology has been coming down.
Yet at the other end of the market, where huge food manufacturers are involved, the same machine brings the same reduced-film-waste and reduced-product-loss benefits that the little guy enjoys. But in addition, because these large firms are networked as they are, they also gain real-time monitoring of packaging efficiencies, downtime, and a lot of other information that the business requires. It could be called a case of crossover technology. It delivers tangible benefits to customers regardless of their size while also delivering bells-and-whistles benefits to larger customers who are networked enough to take advantage of such things.
