Sponsored by Packaging World and Automation World, the second edition of the Packaging Automation Forum comes to the Chicago Marriott O’Hare on May 23. In its debut last year at the same hotel, the event quickly sold out. A little more room has been set aside this year, but another capacity crowd is expected.
As it was at last year’s successful event, the central theme of the PAF is “Driving profits through controls and information technology.” What are the recent developments in controls technology, the Forum asks, and what concrete business benefits do they bring?
This year’s keynote speaker is Gregg Stedronsky, director of packaging engineering at General Mills. In a presentation titled “Between the vision and the plant floor,” Stedronsky will describe progress his company has made in a key initiative: Finding packaging machinery that has a controls platform capable of supporting company-wide information strategies.
Seven additional presentations will follow, including:
• “Recommendations for facilitating automated performance monitoring of packaging lines,” by Thomas A. Doney, senior research engineer at Nestle R&D Center.
• “Total Quality Management (TQM) and Total Production Management (TPM) on the packaging line: How controls and automation technologies can contribute,” by Christian von Olshausen, process engineer packing, Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals Germany.
• “The business benefits of an integrated packaging system,” by Rick Van Dyke, senior group manager, Frito-Lay.
• “Using real-time downtime data collection to drive packaging line efficiency improvements,” by Jeff Russell, principal electrical engineer, Tropicana.
• “The search for greater modularity in packaging machinery,” by Aubrey Hawkins, design consultant in manufacturing information and control systems, and Brian DeHaan, associate engineering consultant, Eli Lilly and Co.
• “Benefits of Simultaneous device monitoring on multiple packaging lines,” by Michael Hader, director of information technologies, Odom’s Tennessee Pride Sausage Inc.
• “Common recipe conversion utility: Getting data to flow automatically to packaging machines on the plant floor,” by Dave Chappell, Make2Pack chair and former corporate technical section head at Procter & Gamble.
The one-day Forum will be preceded by a 5:30 to 7:30 evening cocktail and networking reception on Tuesday, May 22, also at the Chicago Marriott O’Hare. Tabletop exhibits hosted by 10 sponsoring technology suppliers will be featured in addition to the Forum itself.
