Food and beverage manufacturers continually seek packaging machinery designs and process improvements that cut costs and boost productivity. To address these goals, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are designing packaging machines that simplify cleaning, streamline changeovers, save energy, improve the work environment and/or increase a line’s flexibility and speed. The machines often have advanced machine controls and software. Increasingly, the systems include robotics.
Automation can boost output, increase efficiency, foster flexibility, improve quality, enhance safety and/or cut costs. For example, Salt of the Earth in Atlit, Israel uses a new €1 million packaging line to form, fill and seal larger polyethylene bags of tablet or granular products made from natural salt harvested from the Red Sea. Ofer Rokni, managing director of the company, reports, “Our new packaging line cut costs in human resources and packing materials [by replacing preformed bags with rollstock]. We save 44 percent in workforce expenses and have decreased the shifts from three to only one.”