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Networks on the rise, packagers say

Nearly half of survey respondents have few or no networked packaging lines. Yet more than half anticipate specifying them in the next two years, say packagers in an exclusive PW survey.

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Packaging plants across the country are likely to undergo a significant transformation over the next two years, if a recent Packaging World survey is any indication. They’ll move from being loosely connected islands of automation toward becoming fully networked systems. The most important benefits of networking packaging lines will be automatic data acquisition, faster changeover and faster engineering/installation, according to survey respondents.

The survey of more than 60 respondents was conducted at PW’s booth at WestPack ’99 and Pack Expo Las Vegas ’99 last fall. While it’s not a scientific sample of this publication’s readership, the survey does give an interesting indication of the interest that many packagers show in the subject. It also corroborates what some packagers have been telling PW editors during the last year.

Nearly half of respondents said they had few or no packaging line networks. Indeed, not a single respondent from small companies (those with fewer than 100 employees) had networked lines. “Networked” is defined as having PLC or PC controllers on more than half of the machines that constitute a given packaging line connected together via a control network.

This isn’t terribly surprising, even though many plants are now benefitting from networked processing lines. Processing lines, after all, are more conducive to networking, because they’re typically installed by one vendor. Packaging lines, by definition, usually consist of machines from several different vendors, often with different and sometimes incompatible controls on them.

What’s interesting is that 64% of respondents said they had plans to increase the number of packaging line networks in the next two years. To the extent that this number can be extrapolated to U.S. manufacturing as a whole, this response signals a sea change in the way packagers view packaging line networks. Potentially, such a change could usher in a new level of sophistication in packaging line construction and operation.

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