One automation supplier, ELAU, was the buzz of the show

It might have been the ELAU banners greeting you at the entrances to the Dusseldorf fairgrounds. Or the 120,000 show guides sponsored by ELAU that appeared everywhere. Or maybe it was the crowded, two-story ELAU booth with the delta robot buzzing back and forth on highly complex trajectories (photo, bottom left).

But mostly it was the 140+ machines equipped with ELAU’s PacDrive system that stole the show at Interpack 2005. By delivering specialized packaging solutions unavailable from the automation generalists, ELAU became the control system of choice on the best machines from the Who’s Who of OEMs at Interpack 2005.

Interpack is always well attended by the Fortune 100, companies with the engineering resources to evaluate equipment and automation suppliers on a global basis. ELAU Inc.’s president, Christopher Zei, told Packaging Automation that “we were added to a number of new specifications during the course of the show. Packagers can choose from a handful of regionally strong automation suppliers, but at Interpack they could see there’s only one truly global player in packaging—and we’re it.”

While only a handful of US builders exhibit at Interpack, many attended this year’s show and visited ELAU, where they learned how to maximize the performance of their new designs by switching from PLC– and proprietary motion-based architectures to PacDrive. “Because packagers are expressing their preference for ELAU, more OEMs in the US and Canada are making the move.”