As technology has advanced and packaging automation specialists have developed purpose-built technology to change how packaging machines are designed, the ‘tried and true’ of PLC-driven vendor specs has turned into the ‘status quo,’ stifling innovation and speed to market.

So states the new report from the analysts at ARC Advisory Group, titled Packagers’ Automation Specifications Must be Aligned with Business Strategies and Foster Innovative Machine Design.

End users are beginning in earnest to throw out single vendor specs, citing need to align automation supplier capabilities with business strategies and foster innovations in packaging machine design. Packagers who’ve opened control specs experience reduced delivery times, cost savings and performance guarantees.

ARC states that North American packaging machine builders, having lost market share to European builders who successfully argue the value of their machinery against single vendor specs, have been anxious to utilize more effective control systems themselves.

The report contends that CPG manufacturers that do not change their rigid single supplier specifications risk hindering development of innovative designs from the North American machine industry – at a time when packaging is becoming as strategically important as the product itself. And, ARC says it believes that this change will come more rapidly than many North American CPG manufacturers and machine builders anticipate.

ARC recommends that decision makers in the CPG should step up to become the change agents and remove obstacles to the adoption of innovative packaging automation technology.

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