Pack Expo International 2008 was a multi-themed event. How could it not be when attendees and exhibitors alike hailed from all corners of the globe?
But among the messages that rang clear at this massive happening was a message that Deming, that hero of manufacturing efficiency, would have endorsed wholeheartedly: Data matters now more than ever.
For proof, look no further than the pharmaceutical industry. Counterfeiters have made it clear that they intend to make as much money as possible by selling fake drugs in packages that look so eerily authentic that drug makers themselves have a hard time picking the real from the fake. Fortunately, a number of packaging technologies on display at Pack Expo offer hope that counterfeiters may one day meet their match. And most of those technologies revolve around data. It’s a matter of identifying a unit by means of a unique code on the package and then tracking that code through a continuously updated database that flushes out fake from authentic.
Data was also the Pack Expo hero in sectors other than pharma. At a number of booths and in some of the conference sessions I attended, there was talk of integrating real-time information from the packaging machines on the plant floor with business systems used by the enterprise for strategic decisions. Historically, it has not been easy to get data from the PLC-centric environment of the plant floor into the PC-centric world of MES and ERP. But a number of technology providers—most of them clustered in the East Hall—offered new ways of bridging this gap. Again, it’s all about the data.
Other trends noted at Pack Expo included miniaturization and modularization. One machinery exhibitor after another talked about how a machine’s footprint had been reduced compared to a previous model. In most cases, these reductions in size bring with them a reduction in energy consumption and in steel, copper wiring, and other building materials. So machines are not only getting smaller, they’re getting greener.
As for controls cabinets on packaging machines, they’re shrinking faster than the approval rating of a certain lame-duck president. As Jarrett Campbell at the Schneider Electric booth put it, controls cabinets that used to be the size of your kitchen refrigerator now look more like a dorm fridge. They’re also far more modular in nature, to the point where they can be preassembled and carried in a distributor’s inventory. This trend offers a significant savings to machine builders. They can spend less time on in-house programming and assembly of controls cabinets when such services are available from an outside source.
Let me close these Pack Expo-induced ramblings with a booth-side observation made by Marlen’s Jim Anderson, who is the outgoing chairman of the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute, the people who put on Pack Expo. When I asked Jim for his take on what U.S. packaging machinery builders need to do in order to make it to the other side of this economic downturn on a positive path to the future, he had this to say.
“I think those who stick to their knitting, as the old saying goes, will be fine. But in addition to paying careful attention to and building upon the basic strengths that have made them successful in the past, they need to take a close look at export markets. It could make all the difference in the world.”
