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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.