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Six packaging automation trends to watch in 2010

I know the year is already a little long in the tooth for New Year’s predictions; most people get those out of the way much earlier than January 15.

But today is my birthday, so cut me a little slack. Besides, you’ll want to be aware of these developing trends, which come to us from packaging automation marketing consultant John Kowal. John has been actively engaged in packaging automation standards, trends, and technological advances for the past 15 years. He serves on the Purdue University Calumet Technology School dean’s council and PMMI Global Marketing Committee, he started SERCOS North America, he was instrumental in establishing the OMAC Packaging Workgroup, and he is the manager of the LinkedIN Packaging Machinery Group. As they used to say in the Carson era, heeeeeeeeere’s Johnny:

Welcome to 2010, the beginning of a new decade and a new economic cycle in which we’ll all benefit from pent-up demand. Still, economists see growth restrained by a job market that’s proving slow to recover.

Try telling that to Google and Apple as they battle to transform the global mobile phone market that BlackBerry ripped out of Nokia’s grip, just as Nokia plucked it from Motorola in the 1990s.

Why is this happening? Because it’s not a phone any more, it’s the communications platform for a powerful new concoction of software and hardware. Yet, the game changer is not about the technology, it’s about what we can do that we plain couldn’t before. Market share flows freely from yesterday’s leader when it loses the marketing vision and the technological edge at the same time.

This scenario is equally applicable to packaging. So what’s this mean for us -- packagers, packaging machinery providers, and packaging automation specialists -- in the year ahead?

1. Operator panels will simplify OJT training, maintenance
The power of PC-based HMI will allow step-by-step video and animated instructions to operators and first echelon maintenance providers. Using portable HMI panels on long cables – similar to robotic teach pendants – operators can walk around the machine while following multimedia, step-by-step instructions to clear jams, load blanks, perform lubrication, and handle other tasks.

HMI cost is always coming down, with Atom processors now appearing on low-cost HMI and HMI merging with controllers. Now, low-end machines can enjoy the same kind of sophisticated software capabilities as high-end machinery.

This is very important in order for OEE – overall equipment effectiveness -- to proliferate across the packaging floor and into smaller enterprises. And later we’ll see how OEE will become the glue for other important developments.

2. We’ll get over the high cost of developing onboard multimedia
The hardware is cheap. The expensive part will be developing individual videos and animations. But inevitably, the first OEMs to take the leap will win some high-profile projects from those who don’t, and in short order onboard multimedia will become an expectation. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a video is literally a thousand pictures and will prevail.

Tapping into universities, as industry does so effectively in Europe, will reduce the cost for OEMs while simultaneously developing the next generation of knowledge workers.

A perfect example is Purdue University Calumet, where a new packaging resource center and an established computer graphics department are just waiting for a groundbreaking machine animation project.

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