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Meeting about product packaging

Image: PAXLY GmbH

A perfect match – algorithm shows manufacturers the most efficient packaging solution

15.11.2024

Demand for greater efficiency and sustainability in the supply chain always entails the issue of ideal solutions for space-saving packaging. The packaging specialist paxly.ai provides a powerful software tool that compares the extensive requirements of a company in need of packaging with the performance data of packaging producers. If there is a match, the seekers and providers come together.
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Thomas Sievers shows PTC 200

Image: Uhlmann

Uhlmann Group: EU packaging regulations accelerate pace of transformation

14.11.2024

Less packaging waste, more recycling and increased use of sustainable materials – these are the goals of the EU packaging regulations PPWR which will soon be implemented. For this, the packaging industry has already begun full-scale preparations. For example, the Uhlmann Group from Swabia – in the centre of a region that is one of the world's most important hubs for the packaging industry.
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Concept of blockchain technology, graphic showing futuristic chain with digital element

Image: iStock, Jackie Niam

Rendering packaging sustainability transparent with blockchain technology

14.10.2024

Anyone using recycled materials needs to know where they come from, what they are made of and what stages they have gone through. Particularly in times of global, complex supply chains, seamlessly tracing materials is an immense challenge. Blockchain technology can help.
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Made possible by MADDOX: the assistance system at work

Image: Peerox

Our digital colleague will sort it out: self-learning assistance systems in the packaging industry

14.10.2024

AI-based assistance systems are highly popular. These digital colleagues help to get a better, faster and more efficient handle on disruptions, downtimes, capacity overloads and production of rejects in manufacturing. Maddox, developed by Dresden-based Peerox GmbH, is a self-learning assistance system that is now being used in a number of packaging companies.
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Artificial intelligence

Image: iStock

Artificial intelligence for more process quality

23.08.2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) will play an important part in the future in optimising processes within the food industry. It can lengthen the shelf life of food by allowing precise control of temperature and humidity, for example. AI analyses huge amounts of data in real time in order to guarantee optimum recipes and storage conditions and minimise spoiling.
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Woman carrying multiple boxes

Image: iStock

Why ‘right-sizing’ your parcel packaging is good for the planet, and the bottom line

26.03.2024

Consumers are all but addicted to home delivery of all types of products, driving the number of parcels shipped globally from 161 billion in 2022 to an estimated 225 billion by 2028.
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Human operating a display on a humanoid robot

Image: PAL Robotics

What drives the robot market in 2024?

12.03.2024

All over the world, more robots than ever before are in use in various industries: According to the International Federation of Robotics IFR, the number of industrial robots is currently about 3.9 million units. These run the gamut from new developments in artificial intelligence to collaborative robots for new applications and humanoid solutions.
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Image: Sensoneo

Romania launches the world’s largest deposit system for beverages

14.02.2024

Right now, Romania has one of the lowest recycling rates for packaging in all of Europe. This is currently set to change. Recently, the country in south-eastern Europe introduced a deposit return system for single-use packaging for beverages – with almost 80,000 collection points it is to become the world’s largest so-called Deposit Return System (DRS).
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Bottle of wine with label and nutritional values on a smartphone

Image: Marzek Etiketten+Packaging

E-labels for wine conform to new EU requirements

12.12.2023

The EU Nutrition Declaration now also requires labels on bottles of wine. However, labels usually do not provide enough space for the list of ingredients and nutritional values. One solution are printed QR codes leading directly to a relevant website hosting all information that is required by law. One supplier of labels is offering a simple solution for this.
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The compact På(fyll) containers stack neatly for both storage and transportation.

Image: Form Us With Love

Designing for Circular Consumer Goods Packaging

21.09.2023

Four Nordic companies partnered to create a new circular service for consumer packaged goods. Called På(fyll), it is an app-based subscription service for household products made by conglomerate Orkla. Honored recently by Fast Company, it uses specially designed reusable and recyclable HDPE containers and aims to reduce single-use packaging waste.
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A group of people on a platform

Image: Markus Breig, KIT

Moving heavy loads autonomously

12.09.2023

Most of us are familiar with swarms from the animal world. But autonomous mobile robots are already working in swarms in automated, networked production – wirelessly connected and equipped with cameras, they’re able to coordinate themselves and act synchronously.
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Hands on a laptop

Image: Adobe stock/Suttiphong

What does artificial intelligence have to offer in the field of packaging design?

10.08.2023

AI systems have played a role in our everyday lives for a long time now and have become an integral part of the industrial sector. Whether used in manufacturing, logistics or quality control, they complete many tasks more quickly than humans. But what does artificial intelligence have to offer in the creative sphere?
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Detail of a packaging plant with revolving grippers.

Image: Rotzinger

Wireless automation

11.07.2023

Manufacturing increasingly requires automated solutions that intelligently network components within plants. Rotzinger is therefore now using CoreTigo's wireless IO-link technology in its new machine for packaging food. The technology is being employedfor wireless control of grippers on a rail system as they move through the plant performing tasks.
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 Image of an analogue cash register

Image: StellrWeb/unsplash

Considering the carbon footprint during refitting

13.06.2023

Packaging materials are usually the first thing that come to mind when the topic of the ‘carbon footprint of packaging’ is brought up. Machines, however, also produce emissions. But even relatively simple modifications may result in considerable savings. A tool by the KHS mechanical engineering company in Germany is able to quantify those savings.
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An icon showing a person disposing of waste

Image: Gary Chan/unsplash

Labels with separation information on packaging help the circular economy

13.06.2023

Efficient and consistent recycling is one of the pillars of a functioning circular economy in the packaging industry. Such recycling includes the correct separation of packaging so that it can be fed into its respective recycling stream. A survey has now shown that information about separation can play a decisive role for consumers.
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The SoVi app’s user interface being displayed on several mobile-phone screens.

Image: SonicView

Designing barrier-free packaging

16.05.2023

No packaging, no product protection. But how can the visually impaired be sure about what they’re putting in their shopping baskets? A German designer has come up with a clever solution to this problem.
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AI inspection system for lipsticks

Is automation the end-all and be-all? (Image: Rock'n Roll Monkey/unsplash)

Artificial intelligence for cosmetics packaging

10.03.2023

During the production of lipsticks, faults in the outer appearance can occur. To detect these, SEA Vision trusts an inspection system based on AI that is self-learning and thus continues to further improve inspections. The system was developed in cooperation with ARGO Vision.
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Printing table and extruder for 3D printing

The system developed by the project HME 3D, a printing table (left) and an extruder (right). (Image: TH Köln / Heike Fischer)

Pills are printed, not pressed

14.02.2023

A research group has now developed a new printing technique that allows even more active and carrier substances to be 3D printed into customised drugs. Pharmaceutical polymers are printed directly, without first creating a filament.
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Schubert opens educative training centre

Image: Gerhard Schubert GmbH

Training to overcome the lack of skilled professionals

16.01.2023

Within the framework of digitalisation and automation, there is a continual further development of machines. To enable staff to meet these new requirements, Schubert supports their customers with a new training concept which is also intended to combat the lack of trained professionals.
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A person joining two pieces of a puzzle.

Business cooperations can offer added value especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. (Image: Vardan Papikyan)

Added value through cooperation

16.01.2023

In a competitive system, cooperation might not seem the way to success. But small and medium-sized enterprises especially can profit from cooperation – even in the packaging sector. This can be seen in the example of German companies Koch Pac-Systeme and Zahoransky.
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A delivery van showing many different parcels with different labels stacked inside.

The number of online orders and delivered packages is growing every year, all over the world. (Image: Claudio Schwarz / Unsplash)

Packaging in the times of e-commerce

17.11.2022

Today, even your grocery shopping is delivered by mail. The changes to the way we live our everyday lives, brought about by the lasting e-commerce trend, also mean that packaging is not what it used to be. Even something as seemingly simple as a shipping box comes with a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration and improved.
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White smoke coming out from factory grounds

Many companies are thinking about their energy consumption and CO2 emissions. (Image: Marcin Jozwiak/ Unsplash)

Reliably determining the carbon footprint of packaging machines

26.09.2022

Companies are looking for ways to make their production and their products more sustainable. One of the important factors is the machinery which is used here. TÜV Rheinland has now certified a method by Syntegon which determines the carbon footprint of the machines produced by the company.
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Blister pack serialisation

Serialising single doses makes it possible to track each primary package. Photo: SEA Vision

Forgery-proof blister packs

17.08.2022

There is often still the potential for counterfeiting primary packaging for medication, for example if it is separated from the secondary packaging. Now, SEA Vision and the Marchesini Group have presented a new technology for the serialisation and aggregation of blister packs. 
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A fully loaded container ship being towed into a harbour.

Image: Mika Baumeister/Unsplash

What are the consequences of the strain on supply chains?

23.06.2022

The pandemic, war, scarcity of resources, the energy crisis – there are many reasons why supply chains, including the packaging industry, are under pressure the world over. As an end to this situation is not currently in sight, companies are called to examine their logistics procedures.
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A person attaches a QR label to a wrapped cheese loaf.

Image: CFPR

Digitisation you can print

19.05.2022

For many packagers, labelling products correctly is part of their daily business. But digitisation has now entered this field as well. As a result, some manufacturers are working on combining tried and tested labels with bits and bytes.
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Black server from imgIX

Foto:imgix, Unsplash

Big data in the packaging and processing industry

01.10.2020

Companies from all industries are constantly generating more and more data that needs to be saved, analysed and processed. Big data is increasingly in demand in the packaging and processing industry too.
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