The packaging industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in India, and machine manufacturers are more likely to see growth in their industry. India is working on a significant market share in the global packaging and labeling business, thanks to the rapid advancements that are taking place in the development of efficient packaging systems. According to a report available on the internet, the global packaging market is expected to grow at a steady rate of around four percent during the next couple of years.
The increasing popularity of convenience-based packaging is expected to boost the demand for these products in various industries like e-commerce transportation and shipment, food and beverage, personal care, household care, and healthcare industries. Secondary packaging is essential in this business and has grown in prominence recently. Because consumers drive the industry, packaging and labeling patterns impact consumer preferences.
Furthermore, demand for direct-to-consumer markets is increasing in the country, and it plays a significant role in meeting consumer needs. Product mismatches, whether related to type, quantity, or size, often result in significant rejection, increasing back inventory, and blocking a major market share that would otherwise lead to firm growth.
What are our options for resolving this problem? The automation sector is exploding with new technology every year. As a result of this need, the vision system was developed as the third eye, which acts as a shield when the human eye fails. Machine Vision has established itself as a critical component of the manufacturing ecosystem. It helps machines and lines detect even the minute differences and faster response resulting in an efficient and highly productive packaging process.
Labeling – an important part of secondary packaging
The packaging and labeling companies face numerous challenges in handling product identity, quantity, quality, and customer preferences despite embracing new technologies and upgraded systems like implementing aseptic and biodegradable packaging to improve the product shelf life. As per reports on the internet, more than 600 to 700 types of packaging machines and equipment are manufactured by the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector every year. This emerging opportunity for the packaging industry is opening new possibilities.
However, with the vast number of options and opportunities available, capturing market share has become a significant challenge. We check for the authenticity of every purchased package from the market, whether packaged food, beverage, or medicine strip. Still, we have no idea how much effort it takes for the packaging manufacturer to produce it.
A simple pharmaceutical label, for example, contains the manufacturer’s name and address, the identity of the product, the packer or distributor, the net quantity of contents, and the contents statement in standard units. While producing such items on a massive scale, determining whether it has a label with correct initials before releasing it into the market becomes problematic and a major responsibility of the manufacturer as well.
Each packaging industry is time-constrained and operates on a microsecond basis. In this case, the manufacturer, as it is today, accepts any innovation that makes the job easier; every packaging manufacturer understands the market demand and the need to invest in innovations to drive their production process quickly and accurately. Labels are essential in major industries to identify a product, be it a beverage, cosmetics box, or jam container packaging that is mostly similar, if identical in that case, the label makes the difference, and to most consumers, the authenticity product that reflects from the label.
Product presentation is crucial in persuading consumers to choose one brand over another. Products with crooked or otherwise misapplied labels can harm the brand image. In this case, vision systems play a crucial role in detecting irregularities, functional flaws, and printing errors on product packaging and separating them from the production line. Label markings are used as an integral part of brand marketing with packaging and printing companies. Many consumer goods, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and medical kits manufacturers are upgrading their production lines to include machine vision validation for safety and regulatory compliance. Wrinkled or incorrect labels and typographical errors can distract attention from the product’s appearance and market reputation.
Machine vision solution for packaging
Each production facility on the manufacturing shop floor performs a common task to maintain precision and accuracy. Still, due to the increasing market demand, certain things require extra effort, particularly those directly going to the consumers or end-users. The primary reason for implementing an integrated machine vision system is to ensure global UDI compliance across a wide range of pharmaceutical and food products. To verify the contents of a label as well as the quality of the label and record the data for each individual product, a unique system acting as a third eye is required.
The packaging and printing manufacturers needed a system that ensured the customer complied with global UDI standards. Thus, increasing speed by eliminating an age-old practice resulted in a high rate of rejections after the product was released. To solve this problem for manufacturers, a new set of hardware that can be integrated directly into industrial facilities is required.
B&R being the global leader of automation has introduced such a vision system for better performance. The cameras, intelligent image processing algorithms, and innovative lighting portfolio are an integral part of the B&R control system. The uniqueness of B&R’s vision solution is a broad selection of intelligent camera technology. The multiple options at the lower end will replace simple machine vision sensors, while the top of the range will harness the full potential of high-end smart cameras. These entire vision system ranges are easy-to-configure machine vision functions for creating applications with minimal programming. Thus, with only one engineering tool and one application to manage, control engineers can implement many machine vision tasks to curb the load of additional programming.
Also, lighting plays an essential role in image quality. As an integral part of the automation system, B&R’s machine vision lighting is easily synchronized with other sensors, motor positions, and events in the machine application. Lighting control with microsecond precision is guaranteed when synchronizing multiple cameras and light sources. B&R understands the needs of the industry while implementing a system like this, which is easy to install with the running system on the shop floor. The machine vision system is a boon to the manufacturing ecosystem that works efficiently to help you lessen rejections and create a brand in the consumer market.
