The Development Trends of World Packaging Machinery and Equipment

1. Strong flexibility.  

       Simply perform simple operations on the same packaging machine to change the type and packaging form of the packaged products. This feature is very effective for small batch and multi variety market demand.  

2. High precision, high speed, and efficiency.  

       Equipment can not only work at high speed and stability, but also minimize abnormal production time (such as waiting for raw materials, mechanical maintenance, troubleshooting, etc.), which is the most direct way to improve efficiency.  

3. Safe, energy-saving, and environmentally friendly.  

       This includes maximizing the protection of the personal safety of equipment operators and product consumers, minimizing energy consumption (such as electricity, water, and gas), adopting appropriate processes to minimize the adverse impact of the production process on the environment.  

4. Strong interconnectivity.  

       It is necessary to facilitate and quickly achieve communication between single machines, connecting them into a whole line, and also to facilitate and quickly achieve communication between single machines or whole lines and upper level monitoring systems (such as SCADA, MES, ERP, etc.). This is the foundation for monitoring, statistics, and analysis of packaging line efficiency, energy consumption, and other indicators.  

5. The control software of the machine can be easily modified and maintained. 

       The standardization of machine control software makes the structure of the control program clear, easy to read, and easy to understand. In this way, the program developed by one engineer can be easily understood by other engineers, making it convenient and fast to complete system maintenance and upgrades. This is very beneficial for reducing downtime and lowering long-term operational costs for enterprises.  

6. Automatic fault diagnosis and recovery.  

      The implementation of this function can reduce troubleshooting time, labor costs, and personnel training costs.  

       The gap between China's packaging equipment and international advanced packaging equipment is reflected in the above six points. This is related to the significant economic environment in China over the past 30 years. Our labor force is abundant and cheap, and we do not attach enough importance to energy and environmental protection. The economic development model is crude to extensive. In such a large environment, the main requirement of enterprises for packaging equipment is to keep the price as low as possible while meeting production requirements. This is because packaging companies can obtain sufficient manpower and resources at an affordable cost to compensate for the shortcomings of low automation levels and low equipment; Furthermore, most packaging business operators only consider short-term operations and do not have much consideration for long-term operating costs. They do not have strict requirements for the six points mentioned earlier. This prompts packaging machinery manufacturers to reduce product costs as much as possible when producing packaging machines, using low-priced components to improve product price competitiveness. Although such equipment is inexpensive, its long-term use in packaging enterprises can result in increased operating costs such as spare parts procurement, energy consumption, maintenance, system upgrades, and personnel training.  

        With the development of China's economy, the business model is shifting from extensive to intensive. The government regulatory authorities are putting forward higher requirements for energy consumption and environmental protection. The cost of human resources in our country is increasing year by year, and the evaluation of enterprise operations will also become more rational. The overall operating cost (TCO) of a company will be considered as an important indicator. Therefore, packaging machinery manufacturers should recognize this trend and gradually design and produce flexible, efficient, environmentally friendly, energy-saving, and easy to maintain automated and intelligent packaging equipment. Only by focusing on high-quality products can enterprises achieve good development, and the overall level of packaging equipment in China can be improved.