OMAC News

The OMAC Packaging Workgroup and Packaging World Magazine collaborated on a two-part packaging automation survey for buyers and suppliers of packaging machinery. The results of the survey were presented at the Packaging Automation Forum in Chicago on 24 May.

Based on the survey results, control systems are a major part of packaging machines with 47% of suppliers saying control systems are 20-40% of the cost of their typical packaging machine. Most suppliers will offer either one or two control providers on a given packaging machine. A good number of suppliers said one of the biggest hurdles they face is keeping up with the control technology. The major reason many suppliers of packaging machinery offer more than one control provider is probably because 63% of users specify the control provider to the supplier.

The buyers responded that the typical packaging line is made up of multiple machines with 37% reporting two to four machines and 34% reporting five to seven machines. Over 90% of the packaging lines have more than one control provider on them. In answering questions about capabilities of controls that are important to them, buyers' top responses were related to support of control systems, especially in a multivendor environment. In the survey, 55% of machine buyers noted ability for technicians to maintain and troubleshoot packaging machines regardless of the control provider was very important, and 41% ranked it as important. When asked about the ability to have a consistent software structure in all packaging machines regardless of OEM, 39% of buyers ranked this very important, and 48% ranked it important. Suppliers' responses to questions on capabilities of control systems were similar to those of buyers.

Although control systems are a major part of packaging machines, many packaging lines today are still not networked together. Only 40% of buyers said their packaging lines are networked together. When asked about automatic data collection, 49% of buyers said less than 25% of their packaging lines have automatic data collection. Less than 25% of machines are designed for data collection said 41 % of suppliers.

The complete survey results and details are available on the Packaging Workgroup portion of the OMAC Web site (www.omac.org/packaging).