Water. Food. Pharmaceuticals. Retail. No matter what is getting packaged or processed, they all have one common issue; customers constantly want it faster, cheaper and more reliable.

The upcoming PackExpo show in Las Vegas is the preeminent industry gathering, with hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees looking for the newest and most proven solutions to the everyday challenges they face. And for years, the packaging industry has looked to linear motion industry to constantly innovate and offer new solutions that will offer a competitive edge.

As examples;

– A company making 5 gallon buckets needed to rapidly pick product from the unload station of an injection molding machine. By pairing a modular actuator capable of moving at 4 meters per second with accurate grippers, they increased speed and productivity.

– New thinner bottles for water are a bonus from a costs and environmental standpoint, but present new issues with handling and packaging the more varied and fragile product. One producer installed a three-axis gantry and realized a 20% increase in production over a previous robotic arm, with less breakage than with conveyor detectors.

– Looking to increase the safety of a cylindrical mixer weighing 1700lbs, and mounted on a moveable cart, a leading food service producer integrated an inverted ball screw jack, raising safety, productivity and mobility.

– By switching from an expensive, complicated and energy-consuming linkage system and gearbox to a ball screw assembly a dough press was upgraded to save money and down-time, with no loss in productivity.

Interested in attending PackExpo? Use this link to register, and get FREE admission