Materials: Page 729

Containers

Postal service spends $66 million for tray handling

Last fall, the U.S. Postal Service awarded a $66 million contract for 100 robotic container loading systems to ABB Flexible Automation (New Berlin, WI).

January 31, 2000

Coding, Printing & Labeling

Drumming up e-business (sidebar)

Capsule reviews

January 31, 2000

Containers

Drumming up e-business

Making it easier for packagers to re-order packaging materials is an obvious way for suppliers and buyers to take advantage of the Internet. One supplier that’s doing just that is Myers Container (www.myerscontainer.com), a steel drum manufacturer.

January 31, 2000

Conveying & accumulation

Self-manufacture of bottles brings savings

In-house blow molding of 500-mL PET bottles is expanding in a big way at Aberfoyle Springs. Two blow-molding machines are in, and a third is on the way.

January 31, 2000

Conveying & accumulation

Customers love new baby 'bundles'

Forced by customer complaints, a strapping system was replaced by a new shrink bundling system so repackager Sassy Baby Products could cut losses from damage and missing containers.

January 31, 2000

Conveying & accumulation

Palletizers lift Marcal's efficiency

Robotic and in-line palletizers automate what had been primarily a manual process at Marcal Paper Mills’ Elmwood Park, NJ, plant. A two-year system payback is anticipated.

January 31, 2000

Blisters/clamshells/skin packaging

Amish packager takes hands-on approach

A new skin-pack machine provides an Amish manufacturer of brass curios with a smaller, cleaner-looking package that occupies less space on gift-shop shelves.

January 31, 2000

Additives, coatings & inks

FDA fires starter's gun on 'fast track'

Agency offers details of new 120-day approval program usable for most—but not all—food-contact substrate materials.

January 31, 2000

Feeding/inserting/unscrambling

Packaging for kids at Kellogg and Dannon

When these two food processing powerhouses used existing brands as launch pads for kid-oriented new products, they were highly selective about their choice of containers.

January 31, 2000

Secondary Packaging

Retorted food pouches ready for market push

Knauss and Esskay introduce foods in retorted pouches without foil for retail. StarKist Seafood sells a foil-based pouch of tuna to foodservice accounts. Will others follow suit?

January 31, 2000

Sustainability

Mystery of the missing PMNs

The FDA and the pharmaceutical industry are both scratching their figurative heads over packaging suppliers’ apparent hesitancy to use the agency’s new 120-day packaging approval program.

December 31, 1999

Coding, Printing & Labeling

Supplier news: International agreements

IWKA AG (Karlsruhe, Germany) has taken over the packaging technology div. of Jagenberg AG (Düsseldorf, Germany). Concurrently, IWKA has sold its defense technology div.

December 31, 1999