Converting, printing, filling and labelling
Packaging
Packaging lines are sequences of machines from different makers that must behave as one system. Most of the loss on such a line is not in any single machine — it is in the interactions between them, and in changeovers that nobody has ever timed properly.
What goes wrong
Typical problems in packaging
If more than two of these are familiar, there is a first project here worth doing.
- 01
The line stops constantly for short periods that are never recorded
- 02
Every machine is a different brand with a different interface
- 03
Changeovers take unpredictable time with no measured baseline
- 04
Material waste is known in total but not by cause
- 05
Nobody can say which machine is actually pacing the line
What we build
Solutions for packaging
- 01
Whole-line monitoring
State and count captured at every station, so blocking, starving and the true constraint become visible rather than argued about.
- 02
Micro-stop analysis
Short stops measured and categorised, which on packaging lines almost always turns out to be the largest single loss.
- 03
Changeover measurement and guidance
Changeovers timed automatically and supported with guided sequences and enforced parameters on the HMI.
- 04
Waste and reject tracking
Rejects captured by cause and by station, tied to the process conditions at the time.
- 05
Cross-vendor line integration
Handshaking and coordination between machines that currently run as independent islands.
Technology
What is typically involved
- PLC reads across mixed vendors, normalised to one model
- Photoelectric and proximity counting at each station
- Checkweigher, labeller and coder integration
- HMI-based changeover guidance and reason capture
- Line-level dashboards showing blocking and starving
- Historical analysis by product, shift and crew
Outcomes
What changes
Described rather than quantified — we do not publish numbers we have not measured for you.
- The true line constraint identified from measurement
- Micro-stop losses quantified for the first time
- Changeover duration and variation measured
- Waste attributable to station and cause
- One view across machines from different vendors
Capabilities
Most relevant here
- Machine MonitoringReal-time machine, production and downtime monitoring with OEE.
- Industrial AutomationControl system design, panel engineering, machine and line automation.
- HMI DevelopmentOperator interfaces designed around the operator's actual task.
- PLC ProgrammingPLC development, migration, integration and troubleshooting.
- Industrial DashboardsReal-time plant dashboards for the floor, the office and the phone.
Questions
Packaging — common questions
Our line has six machines from six vendors. Is that a problem?
It is the usual situation and it is what the edge layer exists to solve. Each machine is read over whatever it supports, and everything is normalised into one model — so the line-level view does not care that station three is Italian and station four is Japanese.
What usually turns out to be the biggest loss?
In our experience of packaging lines, micro-stops — the repeated short stoppages that are individually too brief to record manually and collectively larger than the recorded downtime. They are effectively invisible without automatic capture, which is why measuring them first is usually the highest-value step.
Tell us about your packaging plant
What runs on your floor, and what you cannot currently answer. We will tell you what is readable today and what a first phase would involve.