Food and Packaging News Sustainability drives latest packaging trends Packaging is believed to account for half of the solid waste in US landfills. Reducing that waste can deliver enormous distribution savings for manufacturers and lower disposal costs for customers. With retailers and other customers demanding less material waste and manufacturers looking for ways to trim transportation and energy costs, Food Engineering’s annual Packaging Trends Study provides details on the growing impact of the sustainability movement. The Bosch Rexroth View: A sustainable future is one that will be engineered, through brilliant technology and innovative manufacturing approaches that make better use of renewable materials and continuous improvements in energy-efficient production technologies. Read the Food Engineering story. Sustainability’s impact on machine design Blow molding equipment that requires less air. Servo technology that brings the benefits of regenerative energy. And palletizing robots featuring “positive turning” designed specifically for today’s increasingly light-weighted plastic bottles. This recent PackWorld article surveys how packaging machinery OEMs and technology providers are helping customers accomplish sustainable packaging goals, including details on an energy-efficient palletizer that uses regenerative energy drive technology supplied by Bosch Rexroth. Read the PackWorld story. Industry’s wasteful ways Conservation may not be as exciting as hydrogen cars or high-tech windmills, but it can offer immediate relief from our spiraling energy costs and reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. One place where great opportunity exists to reduce energy consumption is on the factory floor. For example: industrial motor systems consume huge amounts of electricity, and while there are a variety of systems to help reduce energy consumption of motor-driven systems, these simple technologies remain under-adopted. This Design News story features insight from a number of government and industry experts on how to increase use of these technologies, including Dan Throne of Bosch Rexroth Electric Drives and Controls. Read the Design News story. PACs penetrate packaging The Programmable Automation Controller (PAC) is making its presence felt in the packaging industry, and while not everyone is eager to jump on the PAC bandwagon, it is raising the bar in terms of what users expect from automation. Powerful and flexible, the PAC is displacing the programmable logic controller (PLC), as machine builders and end-users seek more than the PLC’s traditional sequential logic capabilities. Although some consider the PAC “just a marketing term,” this Automation World story explains how PACs like Bosch Rexroth’s new MLC 40 provides the features and functionality, like complex motion control, enhanced connectivity via Ethernet, and machine activity and feedback data, that packaging machinery builders and end users are demanding. Read the Automation World story. Machine efficiency = energy efficiency Energy conservation and energy-efficient production are becoming a growing component of the global sustainability movement. As energy costs continue to soar, all those little energy-saving tricks that everyone once ignored are becoming more popular. Better use of modern motion control and smart machining practices can do much more than just conserve a little energy -- they also can generate efficiencies that energize the bottom line. This Manufacturing Engineering article discusses several examples of an important technology opportunity: power-source regeneration, a technique that exploits the fact that motors act as generators when they decelerate. The article details several reasons why this technology has greater appeal in today’s manufacturing environment, and includes comments from Karl Rapp, engineering manager for Bosch Rexroth Electric Drives and Controls, on the relatively low cost and high potential ROI of regenerative drive systems. Read the Manufacturing Engineering story. Servo system speeds production When you’re in the business of producing sauce packs and cups for major fast food suppliers, speed is of the essence. This Packaging Digest story shows how one major contract blender of condiments, Mullins Food Products, took a careful look at its entire production process, and determined that it could improve the way it packages its dipping-sauce cups into cases for shipping. They recently implemented a high-speed casepacker, driven by Bosch Rexroth servo technology, and achieved measurable improvements in production speed, delivery, quality and efficiency. Read the Packaging Digest story. Related Food & Packaging Topics: Uptime, Productivity, Ease of Use, Reduced Costs, Connectivity. Industry News Get technology and industry updates by e-mail. Subscribe to our Food & Packaging Webletter.