Protective/transport packaging

Xbox box has 'game'

The graphics design for the much anticipated mid-November debut of Microsoft’s Xbox game console strikes a balance for hard-core gamers and mainstream consumers.

December 31, 2001

Consumer packaged goods: Page 155

Contract Packaging

Laser coding excels at Excelda

Excelda Mfg., a contract packager of lubricants and other products sold in the automotive aftermarket, has turned to laser coding to improve legibility of the single-line date code it uses on the plastic bottles it fills.

December 31, 2001

Consumer packaged goods

Industry watch: Achievements

Tetra Pak (Vernon Hills, IL) was honored with the Association of Post Consumer Plastics Recyclers’ Partners for Change Award. —Meyers Label (Minneapolis, MN) is the 2001 recipient of ¶Hormel Foods Corp.’s Hormel #1 Award.

December 31, 2001

Sustainability

Industry watch: Companies

—BluePrint Automation B.V. (Woerden, the Netherlands), with U.S. operations headquartered in Colonial Heights, VA, held an open house at its Woerden facility as a way to introduce its latest innovations in end-of-line packaging automation.

December 31, 2001

Controls & Machine Components

Protective details

The Xbox console includes a variety of sensitive internal components including a hard drive, DVD drive, and a CPU. To protect the console during transportation and handling, Microsoft selected expanded polystyrene foam end caps.

November 30, 2001

Consumer packaged goods

Design goals

Redmond, WA-based Microsoft asked design firm SBI and Company (Salt Lake City, UT) to create an identity at retail for its Xbox game console that effectively and consistently communicates the Xbox brand attributes and positions the company as a leader within the category.

November 30, 2001

Controls & Machine Components

Xbox box has 'game'

The graphics design for the much anticipated mid-November debut of Microsoft's Xbox game console strikes a balance for hard-core gamers and mainstream consumers. After soliciting concepts from several firms, Redmond, WA-based Microsoft awarded the design work to SBI and Company (Salt Lake City, UT).

November 30, 2001

Conveying & accumulation

X-ray vision checks inside chocolates boxes

Thorntons in the U.K. uses X-ray scanning equipment to inspect foil-wrapped and boxed chocolates. Software upgrade detects missing chocolates.

November 30, 2001

Flexibles

Labels take bottles from the wine cellar to the trophy case

The annual Tag and Label Manufacturing Institute competition in October celebrated excellence in tag and p-s label design, as well as innovation in converting.

November 30, 2001

Controls & Machine Components

Networking survey validates OMAC's mission

After we published our packaging line networking survey of machinery suppliers (see PW, Oct. 2001 or packworld.com/ go/oemnetsurvey), we received the following letter from John Kowal of marketing services firm Grant Jacoby.

November 30, 2001

Flexibles

Web of confusion

EPA’s proposed clean air standard is likely to cost packagers, one way or another, in add-on costs by manufacturers or converters.

November 30, 2001

Blisters/clamshells/skin packaging

Label print station cuts fulfillment costs

American Tack & Hardware upgrades label printers for speed and quality images and gets healthy savings in the bargain.

November 30, 2001

Labels

'Tis the season for apple gum pack

Just in time for the fall season is Amurol Confections’ Caramel Apple Bubble Gum, packaged in a reusable apple-shaped polypropylene cup and a removable acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene lid. A polyvinyl chloride heat-shrink label conforms to the shape of the container, delivering graphics via a modified flexo press.

October 31, 2001