Articles and News

By Bill Lydon, Editor According to IFR, more than 220,000 robots were sold globally in 2014. The automotive industry is still the strongest, followed by the electronics industry. But there are many more applications in other industries that are just starting to grow, particularly with new small, safe, and collaborative robots.

January U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $341.17, down 32.9% from December’s $508.57 million.

Proseal UK is now able to securely access, diagnose and quickly resolve issues on its tray sealing machines located anywhere in the world, via secure Broadband connections.

U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $506.89 million, up 32.7% from November and up 4.7% when compared with the total of $484.08 million reported for December 2013.

The two packaging companies will form an unnamed company that will have combined net sales of $15.7 billion.

Koke will be based out of Synerlink’s new U.S. office in Duncan, SC, sharing a facility with Synerlink’s sister company, Hayssen Packaging Systems

PLCopen and OPC Foundation created an open standards ecosystem that simplifies the communications of packaging machines with other plant systems and the business enterprise.

U.S. packaging machinery shipments increased by 6 percent, to $7.9 billion, in 2013.

IMTS – The International Manufacturing Technology Show 2014 was the fourth largest IMTS in history and the largest six-day show ever with registration of 114,147 representing 112 countries.

PMMI now owns Packaging World, Automation World, Healthcare Packaging and Contract Packaging magazines.

July U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $354.63 million, down 11.5% from June and down 1.4% when compared with the total of $359.70 million reported for July 2013.

The beverage packaging industry in North America is expected to reach $26.3 billion in 2015, with plastic bottles leading the way in popularity, according to PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies.

By Greg Hood, Rockwell Automation In end-user facilities that heavily rely on legacy equipment, the right line-integration system can provide real-time insights to prevent and diagnose production issues.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Fluke recently introduced Fluke Connect, a system which allows maintenance technicians to wirelessly transmit measurement data from their test tools to their smart phones. There is a lot of hype about the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing. To date, from what I have seen on the market, Fluke Connect is the most useful, productivity-increasing industry solution based on these technologies.

Kollmorgen supplied a motion control automation solution to IMA PG for their PG Express blister packaging machine.

Although it was a more costly option initially, the automated barrier door was clearly the best choice for protecting employees, minimizing downtime and keeping long-term maintenance costs low.

By Keith Schmitz, Rytec High Performance Doors At MINOR’S food processing plant in Cleveland a forklift picks up a bin of their product and carries it into the next room. Unlike most facilities the forklifts here never take a break because there is no one sitting in the driver’s seat.

Multivac packaging machines work in multi-shift operation up to seven days a week. Diagnostic data requested via remote service provides insight into the machine status at all times. An mGuard security appliance protects the VPN.

The demand for machines in sectors such as agriculture, packaging, materials handling and machine tools will push revenues to $1.6 trillion this year, up from $1.5 trillion in 2013.