And & Or’s NPE insights
PETplanet: How would you assess your overall experience at NPE this year?
The show was spectacular, even more so than in 2018. Many visitors from the Americas, north, central and south. Lots of leads and great quality of the visitors.
PETplanet: Could you please share the key exhibits or technologies showcased at your booth during NPE? What factors influenced your decision to focus on these particular offerings, and what was the response from visitors?
The key exhibit was the container bagging technology and autonomous mobile forklift robot.
1. Bagging technology: flexibility & packing material cost savings as the key benefits. Blow moulders manufacturing PET bottles, jars, jerrycans and other PET containers can pack layers of bottles on a pallet at less cost per layer than using corrugated boxes or trays, or even slip sheet. Bagging technology also offers more product capacity per layer and allows bottle manufacturers to safely pack product in cleaner and more hygienic conditions.
2. Autonomous mobile forklift robot: handling and transporting loads or pallets of finished PET products without the need of labour/operators, from manufacturing lines/areas to warehouse, directly benefitting companies with increased productivity and a reduction of risk. Automating the logistics of palletised finished product connects production lines with warehouses / shipping areas, without the need for auxiliary elements. The time invested by the operators on a PET bottle manufacturing facility is time largely spent moving pallets around from the production to other areas. The use of arms to move pallets between production lines, station pallet wrappers, and warehouse, offers an improvement in plant safety (avoiding the dangerous combination of forklifts and people), in the traceability of product and in the organisation and classification of the finished product in the warehouse. Overall it helps reduce production costs.
