At PMMI’s national meeting in November, ELAU NA president Christopher Zei shared a road map to add value and reduce costs by adopting a systematic, modular approach to mechatronic engineering.

PMMI has embarked on a multifaceted campaign to proactively support its member companies in the increasingly competitive world marketplace. PMMI leaders invited ELAU to brief its members on technology trends based on the company’s demonstrated abilities and global presence.

“In Europe, builders actively seek the best control technology possible. Then they sell their machines worldwide on the resulting merits,” Zei explained. “In North America, the norm is to accommodate user specifications even when performance may be compromised. In so doing, we end up dedicating resources to making less than optimal solutions work – and for the same customers.”

The good news according to Zei is that packagers are becoming increasingly vocal in their shift from costly internal specs to international standards that enable modularity. For example, he noted that 1,000 ELAU-equipped packaging machines running modular automation software are installed every year in North America.

Zei said “we’re honored to have the opportunity to share some of the technologies that we’re finding packagers to be most interested in exploiting. We look forward to developing these capabilities together with PMMI companies in the year ahead.”

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