Holyoke City Hall in the sunlight

Holyoke is in the process of reinventing itself and I have been struck by the beauty and variety of the architecture of the older buildings.  I had dinner Saturday night in a McKim Mead and White designed building, built in the 1920′s that was gorgeous on the outside and in. I hope someone buys it and turns it into a restaurant that brings visitors to it.  It has clearly been loved over the years. It should be a public space again. Holyoke has hired an arts coordinator for the City and it shows in how artists re moving to Holyoke.  I also attend an exhibit of Jerome Liebling photographs which is now at City Hall in the Holyoke Library space.  It is well worth a visit.

So what relevance does that have to Package Machinery, custom wrapping machines and  you as a reader of this?  A lot,  I hope.

Our machine designs go back past the 1920′s and we still support them. But, like Holyoke, we continue to reinvent ourselves. In 2001, we reinvented the original overwrapper, the FA, to a servo overwrapping machine the FA-ST.

Most recently, we have upgraded the FFH high speed frozen food wrapper to the FFH-ST. See the video of the machine running at 140 per minute wrapping with waxed paper.

What comes next? We are looking at revamping our diefold wrapper the DF machine which runs at 150 packages per minute, our VersaFlow machine which overwrapped at 350 packages per minute back in the 1960′s. The richness of our engineering design library offers opportunities to reinvent the right machine for our customers’ needs.

I won’t tell you about the top secret project on which we are hard at work until our customer is satisfied with its performance, but, rest assured, we are using our creativity honed on all those years of building wrapping machines for a great collaboration and a completely new machine. More to come on that this summer!!

The post What’s Old Is New Again for Holyoke and for Package overwrappers appeared first on Package Machinery.

from old to new again

Having introduced the first servo overwrapper in 2001, Package is now using third and fourth generation controls for its servo wrappers. While controls may become dated and hard to replace, we have consistently offered our customers a pathway to stay current without replacing the whole machine. Many times we offer this when someone buys a second or third machine so that all their machines function similarly to their operators, but we also offer it for singleton machines. We recently did this for a customer and this has enabled them to take advantage of the improved recipe storage on our newer controls as well as the greater information the controls provide about the working of the wrapper.

Our customers make a major investment to buy one of our durable and flexible wrapping machines and we intend to support them, as we have our older machines.

What you can expect from Package Machinery

• parts from us for an 80 year old wrapper  or any newer one
• upgrades for all our wrappers
• New technology or maintain your existing technology with a complete rebuild.

No Package® machine is obsolete and unsupported if we have the original designs.

Call or email us at sales@packagemachinery.com if you have an older machine, want to maintain your Package® machine, or want to buy new. We respect that the best path is the one that makes sense for you and we will support you in your choice. It’s the sustainable thing to do.

The post Upgrade Your FA-ST Servo Overwrapper – or older Package® wrapping machine appeared first on Package Machinery.

 
We are seeing a change though in buyer behavior. In the past few months we have shipped different types of wrapping machines to countries in South America, which is an important growth market for us.

What is equally interesting is that these sales are coming from people who never come face to face with us but meet us only through their product samples and what we show them about how their products would look wrapped on our machines. These buyers met us through our website and chose our machine after visits by email and Skype.

They are also more likely to buy a complete package from us including wrapping material. Since they trust us to buy a machine from us, they also trust us to find the right film for them and supply it in the appropriate dimension. We  are honored by their trust and looking forward to growing our business with more visitors like them.

The post Where our wrapping machinery buyers come from appeared first on Package Machinery.

evaluating film registration

Sometimes it is a shim or an adjustment that is mechanical in origin. Sometimes it is a software tuning issue. Once in a while it is a material issue.  For example, our FA-ST servo machine makes a constant adjustment to film based on what the photo eye sees in the registration. Once this resulted in great variability in cut length for the material. After much puzzlement, it turned out that the marks the eye read on the film were irregularly placed by the film supplier. Since it was test film, this was easily resolved and actually proved the quality of our film registration to make adjustments on the fly.

Each product is different and every runoff is unique for that reason. The interaction of the product, wrapping material and machine is different every time. Whether it is a stack of items, a baked good, an unevenly weighted box, each product is different.  Because this is a voyage of joint discovery with the the customer and the skilled machine assembly people bringing expertise to the process, it is always a learning experience for both parties.

For this reason we encourage customers to come to our facility for a two day visit. This gives us a chance to explain the machine, confirm the operating conditions and teach without distraction the machine operations and adjustments. Sometimes we learn new things from our customers’ single-minded focus on the overwrap machine. These two days area valuable time for all concerned and make our subsequent  installation and  training in their facility more relevant and useful.

The post Fine Tuning a Wrapping Machine appeared first on Package Machinery.

As a consumer myself, I share these concerns. But as someone in the packaging industry, I also recognize the items that consumers take for granted: product protection, safety, information are important and often required. Industry trends show that brand owners are looking to address consumer concerns.

Most consumers have moved up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs past product protection and safety, which they take for granted, to the opening, closing and disposal of packaging.  The problem is that manufacturers have not. They still need to insure that the product reaches the consumer intact, conveys required information and is visible on the shelf.  They also need to protect against the unmentionable issue – inventory shrinkage – caused by theft or product damage. Clamshells protect products extremely well and,  by making products bulky, make them harder to steal, just as surely as they  frustrate legitimate buyers in accessing the product they bought.

Recently Packaging Digest had an article entitled Frustration Tops List of Packaging Concerns, in which consumers expressed their concerns about packaging. Over-packaging and difficulty in opening are at the top of the list. The issues were to be presented at Europen’s January conference. We can expect that what happens in Europe will spill over into North America, if only because so many brand owners are global.

There is not a manufacturer out there who is not looking at packaging reduction, while weighing the tradeoff between safety and shrinkage in the process.

At Package Machinery we frequently analyze consumer product packaging trends and have had some success with customers using our overwrappers as bundlers to reduce intermediate packaging, and to replace shrink wrappers as a way to reduce energy consumption. When it comes to ease of opening, we see overwrapping as easier to open than most wrapping methods. Teartape provides an easy-open option.

Call us at +1-413-732-4000 x110 to discuss how we can help you with your packaging issues.

The post Consumer Product Packaging Trends Show Conflict appeared first on Package Machinery.

1. Our wrapping machinery dates back to the early 1900′s. In fact, when there was a contest for the oldest still operating packaging machinery we won hands down. We were complimented by an Italian competitor at the Pack Expo show in 2012 who said that the origins of their overwrapping machines came from copying ours. We still build machines that should last for 80 years.
2. We are still leading the pack with our technological advances. Package Machinery was first to market with an all servo overwrapper in 2001.  Today, our overwrappers come with third generation controls and a choice of two controls platforms for customer convenience.
3. Package Machinery offers a high degree of customization to suit the product requirements. Each machine is tailored to the specific needs of the product. This enables us to offer machines that can wrap trays, boxes, bundles or loose product. We are constantly working to extend the abilities of our machines to do more and different products.
4. We provide unlimited phone support to customers after they buy a machine.  We get calls from people who bought our machines second-hand and we still help them out. Turnaround time for getting answers or parts is much faster.
5. We are close at hand. We are the best option if you want to buy American. We are more competitively priced than machines from Europe and of a higher quality, even if we do say so ourselves.

That said, buying American should be based on the first four factors. Price and sourcing should not be the driving factors: it is the ability to do the job our customers want done.

The post Made in America – 5 Reasons to Buy Local appeared first on Package Machinery.

our new “green” gray roof

As of January 10,2013 Package Machinery is completely moved into, if not completely organized in, its new facility in Holyoke, MA.

We are still finding our way through nonessential things, extra chairs and file cabinets, to the essential ones, like our machine shop and work in process.

In making our move decision, we were driven by living what we recommend to others – Do it Sustainably. We learned a lot about how hard it is to do it sustainably.

Our new location is definitely an inner city one with all the benefits and drawbacks of being in an older city. HOlyoke clearly understands what it needs to do to attract business back to its urban core and we are pleased to be a part of that. We are lucky that Holyoke has the greenest power supply in Massachusetts – the Connecticut River hydroelectric plant, supplemented by fields of solar panels.  This not only provides a lower cost source of electricity but the greenest we could find. And, yes, fish can get up the dam through an innovative fish elevator.

We were happy to learn that rehabbing an existing building is better for the environment than building new. Our building is 80 years old and built in three pieces, one of which is close to bomb-proof. It is also a museum to generations of old telephone systems and electrical lines but we have been able to simplify that.

Our first steps were to decide what we could afford to do, what had to be done and what we would like to do.  The third category got discarded almost immediately. The first is answered by the second and the second became somewhat negotiable.

For instance, we decided we would love to do a green roof and the building could support it, but we uncovered that another part of the roof was in desperate need of replacement. The green roof that might reduce storm runoff is shelved for now.  The gray roof in the picture is the compromise of what is needed and what will reduce the heating and cooling demands on the building. Fortunately we were able to add extra insulation to provide further protection.

Replacing an antiquated oil-fired hot water system with a new HVAC system seemed obvious, but the necessitated lots of wall repair as well as duct work.

Safety was also a consideration. We could have moved into the building and operated as is, but we chose to make some changes. So we have upgraded all the fire safety signage and exit lighting. That will remain a work in process as we work through improvements to an older sprinkler system.

old glass block windows give lots of light

We are making a virtue of necessity. Glass block windows could be replaced by new double paned ones but that fell in the third category.  So we are enjoying the diffused light of the glass blocks and reminding ourselves they provide some insulation.

December evenings and weekends found me as painter in chief.  While this gave scope for my underdeveloped artistic talents, it quickly became far more time consuming than I anticipated. Low or no VOC paints were the order of the day. But as the old heating system gave out, I found that my hands were less coordinated at 52 degrees than I would like and the trim work suffered.

Fortunately, in the nick of time before the pipes froze, we were able to get the new heating system up and running. Christmas weekend found me skipping the hullabaloo and painting up a storm so that we could get carpet down the day after Christmas and move our stuff while our customers were enjoying the holidays. I never enjoyed Christmas more and shopped less. And I still got to cook my favorite dishes.

our conference table looks great in its new home

The carpeting was important, since we wanted to recycle the existing carpet and buy new recycled carpet tile. We were successful in the purchasing of new but returning the old  carpet for recycling was cost- prohibitive. I count this as a failure in our trade off between green and being respectful of the budget.

I do know that, as much as we sold a lot for scrap and recycled as much as we could, we put too much in the dumpster.

While  I see a few more painting jobs in my future and scope for my gardening talents in the spring to improve the exterior, I am more happy to refocus on the great things that lie ahead in 2013 and the new customers with whom we will be partnering to create innovative machines in our new home.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

from all of us at Package Machinery

The post The Moving Process for Wrapping Machines appeared first on Package Machinery.

The post New Address appeared first on Package Machinery.

The post We are moving appeared first on Package Machinery.

Primary packaging is defined as that which the customer takes home. Secondary packaging is that which gets it to the store for customers to purchase. Waste can occur anywhere along this distribution stream.

intermediate cardboard packaging box

In this case, we were looking at waste reduction in the secondary packaging. The clear savings was in weight reduction by removing the cardboard and replacing it with film, which weighs less and takes up less space. But waste reduction extends often to reducing the corrugated carton size which further extends the savings in transportation weight and material used.

The interesting things happen in the testing though. What happens when we get ready to test product that has been wrapped once already is that we need to determine a film for bundling that has a significantly different melt point than the underlying film. Otherwise we can find the film for the primary package sticking to the film for the bundling.

In this case the SKUs included product that was bundled for sale in lots of two, three or four and then bundled for distribution in lots of twelve or twenty four.

overwrapped bundles replace cardboard boxes for shipment to retailer

Not only do we find ourselves unwrapping the product as part of our in-house testing of the machine, but we are now testing for different melt points and adhesion of the bundle wrap to the SKU wrap.

Due to limited amount of product for testing and the number of bundle sizes to testff, we find ourselves unwrapping as much as the machine wraps, so that we can rewrap in a different configuration. We are very busy at the end of the line and then running back and forth to put it in the conveyor at the front of the machine. The run off can make us look like Lucille Ball trying to outpace the flow of product.

Ultimately the savings occur at several points in the packaging and shipping process.

• reduction in cardboard which costs more than film
• reduction in shipping weight from manufacturer to wholesaler or retailer
• reduction in corrugate use to hold the smaller bundles that contain the same amount of product as before
• reduction in waste in intermediate packaging at the point the product goes on the shelf at the retailer

At Package Machinery, we love projects like this that allow us to help our customers create savings through their distribution stream. Let us know how we can help you. email sales@packagemachinery.com for more info.

The post Saving Cost by Replacing Intermediate Packaging with a Wrap appeared first on Package Machinery.