Automation 4 Packaging, The Technology Forum
A report on the Workshop held concurrently with PackPlus 2010 at New Delhi.
Automation 4 Packaging, a forum jointly created by Print-Packaging.Com Pvt. Ltd. and Automation Industry Association (AIA), conducted a Workshop on December 4, 2010 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
The Workshop with its theme ‘Meeting Operational Challenges in Modern Packaging through Industrial Automation’, provided an interactive platform to the Automation technology providers, Solution experts and Integrators, OEMs and buyers across Food, Pharmaceuticals, FMCG, and Personal Care segments. It focused on imbibing automation for the benefit of Indian Packaging Industry, it focused on the multiple dimensions of the operational challenges that confront Machinery Designers, Production Engineering, Maintenance, Operations, Safety, Quality and MIS personnel, AIA brought in a team of experts who shared the recent innovations in Packaging Automation, Motion & Process Controls, Vision Systems, Human Machine Interface and Data Exchange Protocols.
An Overview
Introducing AIA and its subject matter experts (SMEs), Anup Wadhwa, Director, Automation Industry Association, said that discourses in Packaging machinery design have changed. Inputs from supply chain and marketing vis-à-vis packaging, connects strongly to manufacturing and quality management, thus generating demand for quick, flexible and innovative packaging lines.
The keynote speaker, Visweswara Rao Mantrala, Business Transformation Manager, Tetra Pak India Pvt Limited shared how innovation in thinking has helped his company gain a premium position in the industry and urged the Indian industry to constantly challenge itself with better products, and creating higher value for customers. He said the industry need not be segmented between small and big players; but we should examine the great divide between innovation leaders and the short term thinkers. The helping hand of Industrial Automation was paramount in accelerating the growth of contemporary packaging Industry.
PV Sivaram, MD, B&R Industrial Automation, and Executive Council member of AIA, spoke about the game changing technology of Automation in discrete and integrated Packaging environments and the role of standards in opening up choices of multi-vendor hardware. He said performance-price ratios would continue to benefit the user provided he was equipped to absorb emerging technologies with adequate training and support.
The next session was about new trends in environmentally and economically sustainable EOL packaging solutions. Representing Beumer Maschinenfabrik GmbH & Co, Nitin Vyas introduced the benefits of stretch hooding and how automation has helped maintain high safety and availability standards.
Kesari Srinivas, Packaging Business Development Manager, Rockwell Automation, South East Asia, gave the delegates a good feel of counter pulls generated by what end users want vis-à-vis what the OEMs are willing to pay for; and how technology can be exploited to satisfy both needs. Using videos and animated screens, he showcased emerging concepts like electronic CAMs and solutions with on-line kinematics algorithms, integrated with PLC. He explained how this strategy will help OEMs migrate to high-end interconnected systems, where the ability to utilize intelligent machine infeeds and methods for accumulation control are as important as the appropriate machine technology.
Post-lunch, the participants were given a peep into user’s perspective into Line integration, interoperability and OMAC (the Organisation for Machine Control and Automation) guidelines. Using actual case studies, KV Rehani, Hindustan Unilever Limited, shared the Unilever approach towards these guidelines & what benefits accrue in the long term.
Continuing the same topic, Uma Balakrishnan, CEO, Axcend Automation Software Solutions, demonstrated how real-time software can be used to implement OMAC PackML Standard, track and quickly analyse critical operations for de-bottlenecking and improvement. She also demonstrated through a live project how one can further extend value to operational efficiency by creating motivation enablers for operators. A worthwhile scenario where HR welcomes introduction of automation!
The next session dealt with the challenge of pre-empting contamination and brand counterfeit and the role of emerging technologies in pre and post packaging, inspection and quality assurance. Thirumalai Kumar, Siemens Corporate Research and Technologies, gave an overview of smart sensing and unique identity technologies that can ensure high integrity of the packaging process.
Moderated by Debabrata Deb, Director, Future Formats, the workshop concluded with a panel discussion, titled ‘Road map for growth of Indian Packaging Industry and relevance of automation for MSMEs’ The panelists comprised Ravi Sharma, Vice President, Uflex Engineering, Avinash Pangale, National Sales Head, Bosch Ltd, Harendra Pratap Singh, Maintenance Head, Paharpur 3P and Ravi Agarwal, Director, Pepperl+Fuchs India. The discussion brought forth the need for automation players to devote attention to emerging needs of the smaller players so that they too could unleash their innovative potential. A majority of speakers and panelists promised to be part of further deliberations and their gesture was acknowledged by the AIA Director.
