Machinery: Page 819

Flexible packaging

AIMCAL winners shine

Canada Bread and Celplast won Package of the Year in the annual competition of AIMCAL. But other packs were also honored.

April 30, 2004

Coding, Printing & Labeling

Label limbo

Uncertainty over country-of-origin labeling regulations leaves food packagers wondering what’s next.

April 30, 2004

Coding, Printing & Labeling

Labeling updates

Reports on OTC drug labeling, Codex meeting, fighting obesity with labels, and the Senate's passing of an allergen bill.

April 30, 2004

Conveying & accumulation

Integrated automation: 2004 EEC Seminar message

At the Annual Eastern Equipment Committee Seminar, a first-time attendee walked away with the message that packaging automation is becoming more and more integrated. What’s that mean exactly?

April 30, 2004

Controls & Machine Components

TTI, Inc: Flowmeters catalog

From TTI comes a revised version of its Ultrasonic Flowmeters catalog. The free 20-page catalog features detailed specifications, accessories, and options, as well as illustrations for each product.

March 31, 2004

Flexible packaging

Espoma Company: Premade bag opening/filling/top sealing/stretch bundling for plant food

The Espoma Company is reportedly the first in North America to use the U-Pack package from Bischof + Klein for its 4-, 5-, and 10-lb bags of plant food.

March 31, 2004

Secondary Packaging

Espoma Company: Robotic palletizing for pre-made bags for plant food

Espoma’s new robotic palletizer from Automated Production Systems is equipped with customized end-of-arm tooling that uses multiple vacuum zones to pick up either bundles of small U-Pack bags, larger flat bags, slip sheets, or pallets, as necessary. The system simultaneously picks items and places them onto three different pallets. Once a pallet is filled, it is conveyed out of the robotic cell in three lanes that merge into one to feed a downstream stretch wrapper.

March 31, 2004

Coding, Printing & Labeling

RFID debate

While widespread use of electronic product code (EPC)/radio frequency identification (RFID) at the store level is thought to be years away, retailers are already eager to use it for case and pallet-level tagging.

March 31, 2004

Coding, Printing & Labeling

RFID printer/encoder

From Zebra Technologies, the R4Mplus is a thermal-transfer printer that also writes data to an RFID tag carried in the label stock.

March 31, 2004

Labels

No-spill flexible spout for motor oil

This theoretical development from Cal Poly packaging students centers on a No-Spill Flex Funnel for PET motor oil bottles.

March 31, 2004

Coding, Printing & Labeling

PMMI's Yuska talks at Total

Chuck Yuska, chairman of the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute, addressed assembled journalists recently at the Total Processing and Packaging Show in Birmingham, England.

March 31, 2004

Controls & Machine Components

OMAC/WBF working session

Two leading manufacturing industry organizations—World Batch Forum and Open Modular Architecture Controls Users Group—will hold their first working session May 19 as part of their effort to coordinate their development of manufacturing standards for machine and batch control.

March 31, 2004