Everyday consumer awareness is exponentially increasing, thus there is an impact on buying behavior which challenges the packaging industry to invest more in innovations. The end-of-line packaging is the process of assembling the products to their final finished packaging. End-of-line packaging seems a less rigorous part of any packaging unit, but it marks the most important one as it will directly reach the hands of a consumer. In manufacturing, end-of-line packaging equipment is the final step before the products continue down the supply chain. This is the main reason why every packaging company needs an end-of-line packaging solution that it can completely rely upon and ship its products.
Automated solutions like stretch wrappers, case packers, and palletizers ensure that the products arrive at their destination without any damage to the primary packaging or product. Poorly packed or wrapped products can lead to damaged packaging and products which will lose the market handover and will have to be discarded as they will be of no use. This, in turn, leads to untimely product distribution to consumers and potential harm to the company’s brand identity. When products are sent out of the factory, the trust and confidence – secure, stable, and undamaged condition of the product throughout the shipment and transportation – has to be maintained.
Thus, automatic end-of-line packaging solutions provide more assurance and reliability to deliver more consistent and reliable results without any worry about the products being shipped. End-of-line packaging being the last and important stage of packaging is recently gaining significant importance with the drift change in consumer awareness and expectations.
Adapting to sustainability
End-of-line manufacturers are adapting to the needs of consumers and at the same time adhering to the current market trends to be flexible, adjustable, and adaptable so that to function efficiently and collaborate and adapt well with the packaging trends that are an important part of the new era of sustainability needs. In a view to reducing material and energy usage, sustainability is the positive trend roving around in the packaging industry. Thus, every manufacturer is investing majorly in tertiary packaging. OEMs are exploring all the possibilities in the market that help them curb high energy usage. The goal is now to attract the conscious consumer through their support in maintaining a global approach towards creating a sustainable solution.
OEMs are now evaluating every buyout component required for the production facility that yields to less energy consumption, and waste reduction, understanding the trade-offs across carbon footprint and recyclability. As per recent reports, at least one-fifth of the world’s largest public companies have committed to meet net-zero targets by 2030. It is seen sustainable manufacturing involves some global goals including environmental impact, cost, energy consumption, waste management, and even the safety and health of factory members.
Technology breakthrough for end-of-line packaging
Innovations have scaled up the technical expectation of the packaging industries. This has helped the packaging manufacturers to now implement available technologies to impress the consumer market. All of this can be feasible only when there is technical advancement to experiment with, and the process is not long, unlike traditional practices. Manufacturers are ready to invest and experiment with the different breakthroughs of technological advancements, the only thing that takes the decision in different innovations is the time required to adapt to newer technologies. OEMs and EUs are continuously looking out for solutions that are easily implemented without taking much time and effort. Also, the availability of spares in such cases is also considered.
B&R being a global innovation partner for OEMs and EUs has contributed to some of the finest innovations in automation giving an edge among others to rise. B&R offers solutions for various packaging machinery – from primary and secondary packaging to end-of-line solutions.
End-of-line packaging also comes with many challenges like increasing batch size variability, shorter product lifecycles, unpredictable demand fluctuation and product proliferation. All these unending setbacks are going to be there with the manufacturers but what can be done to decrease these setbacks is to continuously experiment with newer technologies that can help in reducing the implementation efforts with the manufacturers.
B&R in such cases has always helped the manufacturers to experiment and gain the required performance with the help of recent innovations based on magnetic levitation where B&R’s ACOPOS 6D moves products freely through an open production space, creating new dimensions of flexibility in packaging. Each product can be raised, lowered, weighed, tilted, and rotated as it navigates its own personal route through the system. The system enables instant changeover on the fly, profitable small-batch production, minimized footprint and mass customization on the production floor.
ACOPOS 6D eliminates all friction, wear, and contamination – making it ideal for handling products in the strictly controlled environments of the food and pharma industries, including cleanrooms. Machine-centric robotics is the absolute game changer with the robotic control which is an integral software function within the machine controller ensuring the tightly synchronized operation needed for picking, packing and end-of-line packaging.
