Summary:
What is the impact of automated packaging systems on the factory?
What technology does the factory choose when packaging goods?
Development history of automated packaging systems
What are the differences between conventional packaging and automated packaging?
The packaging of items for a safe delivery has been an important part of trade for a long time. With bigger shipments and better transport options development of packaging systems is unavoidable.
Automated packaging systems are one of these developments which can be very beneficial for factories for many reasons. These benefits and the history of packaging in general will be discussed in this article.
What technology does the factory choose when packaging goods?
For a factory there are many factors that play into the decision of what packaging they use and how they will package a product.
The most common packaging you can see is plastic or cartons, but also glass or aluminum.
Depending on the type of packaging used a factory can determine if they need to use a conventional packaging method or are able to use an automated packaging system.
A conventional method is the usage of laborer who manually pack an item and need to ensure its security.
With an automated packaging system machines and robots oversee the packaging process and do the work.
There is also a somewhat less common practice of combining workers and automated process. This is most of the time if there are just one or two steps in the packaging system which cannot be done by machines yet and need human interference.
Development history of automated packaging systems
Packaging has existed for a long time because humans needed something to store items or food in or to make transport easier.
Especially in medieval times packaging your items became more popular and there was a huge rise in wooden barrels or crates for storage and transport.
The next development happened during the industrial revolution. This was an important stage because the sudden increase in demand for goods meant that more and better packaging was needed. As a result, the tin can and cardboard boxes where invented and used more commonly. It was also during the industrial revolution that first automated packaging systems started. These were very simple and still needed a lot of human supervision, but the first attempts and prototypes where made.
The technologies discovered and used during the industrial revolution have been refined until now and newer technologies are added. Nowadays it is possible to automated whole processes on levels that were impossible to imagine just a few decades ago.
What are the differences between conventional packaging and automated packaging?
As mentioned, the development of automated packaging systems has been a huge success for factories and there are many benefits to using a system like that.
Reduces the risk of injuries
If you have humans working amongst machinery, there is always a risk of them injuring themselves. But there is also the risk of repetitive strain injuries, even with no machines involved. Doing the same motion everyday can damage the human body and incapacitate a worker. Automating the process will remove the need for any human input and thus injuries can be avoided.
Production Speed
There is a limit to how fast humans can operate and work without working sloppily or risk injuring themselves. Using an automated system gets rid of this problem because machines can work at higher speeds and remain consistent in their quality.
The automated process is also able to keep up with a high output of products while manual workers would be unable to keep up with the machines speed.
Reducing risk of bottlenecks
Bottlenecks usually happen due to human error. A small mistake can halt or slow down a whole production. This issue is resolved by using an automatic system. In general, the process will be without faults and run smoothly. There is a small risk of a machine stopping to work, but this can be avoided by regular inspections.
Downtime
If there are humans working in factories, they need to have breaks as well which can lessen production or slow it down.
Automated packaging systems can always run and with the right programs it can even be mostly unsupervised. This increases the efficiency of the system.
Quality Control
While humans are still superior to most machines considering quality control, they can still make mistakes. Due to new technologies machines in the packaging process are also able to do the quality control and ensure that all products have no flaws.
This quality control also works at all times and does nod decrease in its consistency, making it an efficient addition.
Lower labor cost
If humans are employed, they obviously need to be paid for their work while machines do not. There is an initial cost of installing the automated packaging system and for inspections.
The money that needs to be spent to operate the automatic systems is much less and thus more cost efficient for a factory.
Access of information
By using machines with improved interfaces workers can oversee production much easier and gain information on the process. Due to this workers can work with precise information which reduces the risk of false calculations and mistakes.