With digitisation, films made of recycled material, and the increasing use of robots, mechanical engineering companies in the packaging sector have to face continuous changes, according to Beumer Group.
The company says they can adapt themselves, but they can also be pioneers and set trends. However, that is easier said than done as it is often difficult to actually know what is on the minds of the suppliers and how they will react to the various issues in the sector.
Beumer expert Jorg Spiekermann, the company’s sales manager for palletising and packaging systems in the Consumer Goods area, weighs in.
“We clearly feel the changes in the packaging industry. Our customers require solutions permitting them to further relieve their staff, make their processes more flexible, and increase their production and resource efficiency,” explains Spiekermann.
“On request, the system provider delivers the packaging sector complete packaging lines – from filling up to the palletised stack, and also from one single source. This means that interfaces can be omitted or minimised and the customer only needs one point of contact.”
According to Beumer, with its system solutions, full pallets or individual bags can be forwarded to a connected warehouse or directly to the loading space of a truck, as the system components are mainly transport technologies, such as conveyors or vehicle-based systems.
Beumer also says that various solutions for handling and manipulators, such as robots, buffer and storage modules are available as well. The company always uses components from a modular system, which means the solutions can be expanded at any time and can grow with the customer’s needs.
“For best results, and to ensure full material and data tracking, the filling, palletising and packaging components, as well as other system components, must be perfectly matched,” Spiekermann explains.
“It is more and more important to network logistic processes and to control them in an automated way.”
For this, Beumer has developed a modular Software Suite as its data processing system, which can be adapted individually to the particular tasks.
“Since we want to consider and optimise the process as a whole, experts are of course able to easily integrate products from third-party suppliers,” says Spiekermann.
“A cross-program user interface shows process data and reports. All available data can be accessed without having to switch between different applications.”
With the Beumer warehouse control system, the Software Suite can be easily connected to the warehouse management system or the customer’s ERP solution. This ensures the communication between the different control levels for the user.
And by doing so, Beumer can create an intelligent connection between the individual systems, and integrate them into the existing processes and inventory control systems of the customer.
According to Spiekermann, the trend goes towards digital solutions and robotics that increase automation potentials and further optimise supply chains and processes. This also changes the role of the packaging system suppliers and cooperation with the customer.
“There are many young companies with a lot of know-how ready to surprise the market,” emphasises Spiekermann.
“But we don’t want to wait for them to take us off the hook with their fresh ideas. We prefer to take the helm by ourselves, we look for and support promising start-ups and thus carry digital projects into our company.
Beumer has not only committed itself to evaluate its packaging system comprehensively on the levels of economy, ecology and social responsibility, but for all products it makes.
“We consider the systems in its entirety, not only from its cost side. For example, we continuously look to reduce energy and resource consumption in the production cycle and during operation, as well as keeping emissions to a minimum,” Spiekermann concludes.
