As a marketer looking to drive sales, your packaging designs likely focus on product differentiation, consumer convenience, and consumer expectations. Designing the package can be an artistic experience. However, you need to also be aware of the manufacturability of your design and your engineering team’s goals.

Brands that sell similar products compete for the same consumer’s money on the shelf (or webpage). Your packaging could make or break that consumer’s decision to buy your product or your competitors at the point of purchase.

Downtime is the undisputed enemy in manufacturing. But do you know how much an hour of downtime actually costs?

When you purchase a new packaging machine, are you buying it for the next year? Or how about the next five years?

COVID-19 has created an increase in demand for medical equipment including syringes. Hospitals are increasing orders for syringes because of the influx of more patients requiring care and the inevitable mass immunization of COVID-19 once a vaccine is created and approved. Early estimates suggest that at least 70% of the population will need the vaccine including more than 300 million people in the United States.

Seal strength and integrity are important for food safety and shelf life. But, what factors make a strong seal?

Heat, time, and pressure. The perfect combination of these three factors is essential for strong seal integrity and strength in packaging. Maintaining seal integrity throughout the package’s life cycle is important to guarantee high product quality upon opening. For the consumer, there is nothing worse than buying a product, such as a delicious cut of steak, only to find out the product has spoiled because of a seal breakage. Obviously, that reflects poorly upon the meat company.

Incorporating Cobots into your packaging process can improve packaging efficiency and employee safety.

Cobots, short for collaborative robots, are designed to work alongside humans in shared workspaces. Cobots in packaging are used to make human workers more efficient, enhance performance and become more effective. Unlike robots, cobots usually work with employees, rather than replace them. It's also a safe technology for the employees working alongside cobots because there is no need for cages or closed areas separating the cobots and workers.

Use a uniform technology architecture to improve packaging operations. Having a uniform technology structure within automated packaging machines provides several benefits for companies to optimize the efficiency of the machines. Automation is continuing to expand; in a study done by PMMI in 2017, over 50% of users interviewed use automation on their plant floor. These numbers are expected to grow soon with expanded capital budgets. Automation is proven to reduce costs, provide consistent quality, meet the demands of flexible manufacturing and help overcome labor issues. Using uniform technology across automated machines on the plant floor is the best way to achieve maximum efficiency.

Increase and update packaging automation technology to alleviate labor concerns and cost.

The past year has seen historically low unemployment rates which means the availability of labor is scarce. Low unemployment combined with high turnover rates has created an environment in packaging and manufacturing with rising costs. The current job economy is the perfect opportunity for your company to plan to advance automation.