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'Standardize!' say survey respondents

An exclusive Packworld.com survey on packaging line data acquisition capabilities brings a cry for standardization wherever OEMs can manage.

Chart 1
Chart 1

Are data acquisition capabilities in today’s packaging lines more likely to be developed internally by packagers or do they come from outside suppliers? According to an exclusive survey conducted in April on Packworld.com, “developed internally” would appear to be the answer in more cases than not (see Chart 2).

Respondents also indicated that formatting of the data for extraction from the PLC is again more likely to be done by in-house technicians or engineers than by packaging machinery OEMs or a systems integrator (see Chart 3).

But maybe packagers would rather not bear quite so much responsibility for implementing packaging line data acquisition systems. Maybe they’d rather get more help from the supplier community. At least that’s what some survey respondents had to say in their answers to the first of two open-ended questions. The question read as follows: “What might packaging machinery OEMs do differently to facilitate data acquisition capabilities on tomorrow’s packaging lines?”

At least two comments from survey respondents suggested that packaging machinery OEMs could help facilitate data acquisition if they would, as one marketing manager at a food manufacturer put it, “Build data collecting technology into their machines.” Said a packaging professional from a pharmaceutical company: “Come in with ready-made packages as options at the time of purchase.”

One recommendation by survey respondents that surfaced more often than any other revolved around standardization. One viewpoint, from an engineer in the industrial products sector, was captured in a single punctuation-enhanced word: “Standardize!”

Others were a bit more chatty. “Agree on a standard protocol for formatting, acquiring, and exporting data in a PC-compatible format,” said a quality assurance officer at a food manufacturer. Said another respondent, an engineer from a beverage maker, “Make data available in standard format and standard protocol.” One respondent, a maintenance engineer from a chemical manufacturer, suggested that conformance to widespread notions of standardization should not be a capability bolted onto a packaging machine halfway through its development. “From initial concept,” he wrote, “design machines to interface on a standard communications platform.” Perhaps a similar wish lies behind the suggestion of a plant manager at a food plant who recommends that OEMs design machines having “Compatibility with other manufacturers for reporting purposes.”

A final note on the recommendations relating to standardization was this idea from an engineer at an industrial products company: “Standardize format through PMMI.” With more than 500 members in the United States and Canada, the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute might not be a bad place to turn to where standardization is concerned. But even if members could agree that it was a good idea, what would non-members in Europe and Asia say?

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