Interpack 2023: Automation and digitalization lead industry streamlining charge

12 May 2023 --- Interpack 2023 wrapped up after ten days of industry fervor at Messe Düsseldorf, Germany. The show, which returned after a six-year break, displayed automation and digitalization as key topics in all 17 trade show halls. 

“We currently see a big movement and investment in [digitalization and automation],” Adam Langer, director of sales and business development, EMEA at Balluff, tells PackagingInsights.

“Digitalization is a buzzword for some companies, but they want to break it down. I see a lot of investments [in digitalization] like we saw in the automotive industry in the last year. And revamping [the packaging processes] means at the end, bringing the machines and the production to another level to get higher productivity and fewer failures.”

Upheavals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have led to industry innovations for remote access and virtual reality solutions, while e-commerce has become indispensable. 

We also learned how automation and digitalization are helping solve a budding personnel problem in the industry – cobots and robots help to ensure that products are packaged correctly and help to reduce the need for manual inspection and sorting of products. 

“I think the packaging industry is going big time into digital,” Marina de Barros, executive vice president for Europe and Central Asia at Sidel, shares with us. 

The key topics for Balluff this year were condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and process improvement.“Digital enables us to be more effective in the production lines, understand failures more quickly and address them to adjust production processes. And that’s the array of solutions we provide not only in single machines but also in full-line solutions.”

Remote software and machine repairs
Sidel presented its Evo-On software suite, designed to supervise and optimize performance lines through a cloud suite with built-in intelligence. “Agility is more important than ever when facing constraints and challenges. Sidel’s range of digital solutions enables its customers to turn data into smart decisions,” the company shares.

“Sidel aims to help its customers reach the highest possible production performance levels without compromising operational costs, product quality or environmental impact. Its skilled teams have developed cutting-edge technology that draws on innovations in IOT and AI.”

In cooperation with the Beumer Group, Elara Digital offered an innovative standard maintenance solution, which optimizes maintenance processes, maximizes the availability of machine assets and reduces the workload of the maintenance team.

Maintenance staff can immediately access all the relevant information for inspections or troubleshooting by scanning the QR code on the machines or equipment. Malfunctions, repairs and downtime can also be recorded and documented in seconds, ensuring a seamless machine history. 

Cobots and robots
Unplanned machine repairs cost companies time and money. Remote software upgrades and virtual technical assistance were recurring themes at machine providers this year. Schubert brought technical advancements including cobots for rapidly feeding different packaging components on a line.

Schubert’s robot-based modular technology was spread across four thematic islands at the exhibition stand – machine services, turnkey solutions, consulting and pharmaceutical packaging.

“We have six years of time now to develop new things and one of the key directions we have taken is to make machines smaller, more compact, by not losing any productivity or performance,” shares Marcel Kiessling, managing director of Sales and Service at Schubert.

“At Interpack 2023, we launched our brand new collaborative robots Schubert tog.519. It is actually the fastest cobot in the world leading up to 90 cycles. You can move to the cobot wherever you need it for applications like sorting, kidding, feeding into a TLM machine for Schubert, for example.” 

Kiessling details that Schubert demonstrated two “interesting” applications of the tog.519 cobot at the show: “one is a standalone application, we are producing a mixed bag of two different products from two feeding belts. We do that with around seven year cycles per minute. And we're using the cobot as well for a very small and compact cosmetic filling engrossing machine.”

Smart factories
Moreover, IMA emphasizes that sustainability and digital transformation are two sides of the same coin, capable of positively impacting business and the environment. The company brought its Digital Hub to the show, where the IMA Digital project allowed visitors to view the IMA Smart Factory. 

IMA presented 12 novel machines at Interpack 2023.“They are connected, and data collected in real-time are sent to the Control Room at the fair and then displayed on the various dashboards. Visitors can view an actual simulation of what happens during production: data analysis, potential implementations and the increase in production capacity, with the support of the industrial metaverse etc.,” the company shares.

“Sustainability and digital – opposite and integrated concepts which in the Sensing Future Arena actively converse to complete and enrich the Digital Hub, which is the portal providing access to all IMA Digital products now available on the market.”

Tna Solutions also explored virtual reality with its Extended Reality technology that enables remote commissioning, installation and maintenance of production lines while reducing its carbon footprint. 

Furthermore, Sea Vision Group presented its new AI-based lipstick inspection system. The company states that despite all the efforts made during production to prevent and control many potential defects in lipstick, flaws still pass through quality control undetected. 

The company’s AI seeks to remedy these potential defects using semantic segmentation on the zones of the lipstick – body, tip, neck, mechanism and others – to identify every possible flaw pixel by pixel. 

By Radhika Sikaria

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