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Innovative New Controls Tech at PACK EXPO

Controls tech featured at PACK EXPO Las Vegas: The clever use of tablets, advanced air monitoring, a highly integrated machine vision platform, and newly announced technology partnerships were all hits at the show.

Antares Vision Group
Antares Vision Group

Controls Tech isn't the only area of interest at PACK EXPO. Click the links that follow to read more about innovations in:  Cartoning  |  Case and Tray Packing  |  Coding and Marking  |  Conveyors and Material Handling  |  Inspection and Detection  |  Labeling  |  Form/Fill/Seal  |  Food Processing & Packaging  |  Sustainable Packaging  |  Robotics  |  Pharma

To no one’s surprise the use of tablets—lightweight, portable, powerful—in programming and operating packaging machinery was a recurring theme at PACK EXPO Las Vegas. One good example was at the booth of Antares Vision Group, where a comprehensive, integrated production ecosystem called Diamind was introduced. This series of interconnected hardware and software systems operates at the line, factory, warehouse, enterprise, and supply chain levels to provide products with digital identities through manufacturing and fulfillment processes.

With a strong background in life sciences—particularly the inspection and traceability expertise required for the demanding pharmaceutical industry—Antares has spent the past few years building its technology and know-how for food and beverage manufacturers as well. The company has taken an M&A approach to its growth, acquiring 18 companies since 2019, according to Micaela Orizio, the company’s marketing communication director. Antares Vision changed its name to Antares Vision Group in 2021 to reflect its growing expertise, she adds.

Some of the acquisitions focused on traceability, some on inspection, and some on the food and beverage market, including the 2019 acquisition of FT System, a large player in bottling and packaging inspection, and the 2020 acquisition of Applied Vision, which specializes in inspection of cans and bottles but which also gave the Italian company more of a route into the U.S. market.

Diamind was developed as a result of that growth strategy, Orizio explains. Antares is in a unique position, she says, because it provides a full stack of solutions for traceability, including the equipment, software, and also data management. The company built its expertise in traceability around the highly regulated pharmaceutical industry, managing the large amount of data around serialization requirements. The use of tablets, as seen in the photo shown here, makes this data visible and actionable.

“Thanks to our experience, we started to leverage this amount of data and also expand our thinking about how to use traceability,” Orizio says. “Diamind connects all the pieces in terms of data management at different levels—at the production line level, connecting traceability data, all the data coming from the unique digital identities.”

Orizio mentions the wide array of inspection systems within Antares’s portfolio, including vision and X-ray systems, metal detectors, and even a forthcoming microwave-based inspection technology. “All these systems that you find on the production line use data,” she says. “We are able to connect this data to the digital identity, so it knows exactly how a product is made—the quality control it’s passed through and also coming through the supply chain.”

Diamind’s integrated setup provides a single point of reference to simplify project management and centralized support services, ensuring product quality and end-to-end traceability via integrated, cloud-based data management.

“Today, the focus on data is essential because it allows you to take a decision, to plan, to prevent. And how to give everyone the access that needs it is the real challenge,” Orizio says. Diamind is driven by a technological trend to provide more simplicity in complex environments, she adds, commenting on integrating what has been a complex chain of separate providers for inspection, traceability, data processing, etc. “The goal is to provide this unique technological platform in order to make data management easier.”

Diamind comprises multiple production and supply chain suites, making them applicable to manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers:

  • Diamind Line includes inspection systems and machines for manufacturing and packaging lines. It provides quality control for products, packaging, containers, and labeling. This suite also includes track-and-trace equipment and software for digital identity management through serialization and aggregation.
  • Diamind Factory is a software suite that manages the entire production site, monitoring and optimizing processes, enhancing production efficiency and quality, and improving planning, factory maintenance, and sustainability facilitation.
  • Diamind Warehouse is the software suite that leverages traceability and serialization data to manage the inter- and intra-facility movement of goods, including receiving, shipping, materials tracking, and remaining inventory.
  • Diamind Enterprise offers software to help simplify regulatory compliance management, including track and trace oversight of serialized and non-serialized products and assets.
  • Diamind Supply Chain is a software suite enabling end-to-end visibility and management, from raw materials to trading partners to end users.

Though Antares is focused on providing the full inspection and traceability technologies needed, this does not mean that a customer cannot use Diamind with its existing systems—whether Antares systems or competing equipment. “Diamind is absolutely modular for the user and can be connected to the existing systems and existing software,” Orizio says. “It offers interoperability to connect different kinds of sources of data coming from different kinds of machines. It can harmonize the data format in order to make all the data speak the same language.”

Antares offers a service to its customers to help design the connection of its own systems with other companies’ equipment and software.

Tablet-based machine control

Douglas MachineDouglas MachineElsewhere at PACK EXPO, Douglas Machine introduced GuidePoint, a comprehensive, portable tablet-based knowledge and support center engineered to address the challenges faced by machine operators and maintenance personnel as they work with the company’s range of secondary packaging equipment.

According to Steve Lipps, senior director of Product Management for Douglas Machine, GuidePoint took approximately a year and a half to develop and was created in response to extensive research the company conducted with 20 different CPGs on the pain points they were experiencing in their packaging operations.

“We’re a machine builder, so certainly feedback on machine design and operation and efficiencies is part of the deal,” says Lipps. However, the resounding feedback focused on the critical role of workforce issues, the availability of skilled personnel, and the need for streamlined training and support. GuidePoint was born out of this necessity.

Lipps says that a cross-functional team including not just the firm’s own technical documentation group and engineering group but also outside resources as well, were used to develop the system and ensure it was as user friendly as possible. The tablet format was chosen for this reason. “Everyone is used to working on a phone, with applications that are intuitive and work easily,” he said. “To some degree, there’s even a little bit of a play factor with them. If you give people something to play with that they’re used to playing with, they’ll do it, and it’s a way they can learn.”

GuidePoint primarily targets operators and maintenance personnel who work closely with the company’s packaging machines. Its primary goal is to empower these individuals, making them more independent and knowledgeable, ultimately leading to increased production line efficiency.

One of the key functionalities of GuidePoint is its ability to assist in finding machine parts swiftly. In the past, locating specific parts on a packaging machine could be a time-consuming and frustrating process. GuidePoint simplifies this by providing a three-dimensional, drill-down visual interface. Users can navigate through the machine’s components, identify parts, and even access exploded views, all with the aim of locating the required part within minutes.

Another feature of GuidePoint is its fault diagnosis capability. It helps bridge the communication gap between operators and maintenance personnel. When a fault occurs on the machine, GuidePoint can provide a list of potential causes and solutions. Additionally, it offers video fault capture, enabling users to visually review what transpired during a fault. This tool aids in quicker fault resolution, minimizing downtime. “So that’s definitely an in-production help tool to aid in productivity in addition to just educating,” notes Lipps.

GuidePoint also simplifies the changeover process by providing clear, step-by-step instructions tailored to the specific recipe being used. This not only reduces the risk of errors but also helps newer employees quickly adapt to the changeover process. Furthermore, GuidePoint offers a clean view of the required changeover points, simplifying the task for operators. It even provides a smart feature that suggests which points should remain unchanged, saving valuable time during changeovers.

“If you’re an experienced operator, you might just use this list as a tool,” says Lipps. “If you’re a less experienced operator, and you don’t know what a changeover point looks like or how to do it, you can drill down to an enhanced view.” An area is also provided for operators to add notes for future reference or to attach documents.

One notable aspect of GuidePoint is that it operates offline, eliminating concerns about connectivity issues within the plant. It can function as a standalone tool with all necessary information stored within the tablet. However, it also offers the option for remote connectivity, making it possible to hold video conferences or access support from technical experts. 

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INTRODUCING! The Latest Trends for All Industries at PACK EXPO Southeast