Workforce shortages remain a top concern for many manufacturers, and the labor-intensive packaging department is often the primary source of these troubles. In response, more bakers are automating their secondary packaging where much of this labor remains, observed Jorge Izquierdo, vice president of market development, PMMI.

“There are solutions of every size and shape,” he said. “There are some that are semi-automatic, others that are high speed with maybe less flexibility and some others with very high flexibility. For example, palletizing robotics are very flexible.”

Automating tasks like palletizing and carton loading in secondary packaging removes many of the physically demanding, repetitive roles that workers may find unappealing, which also contributes to higher employee turnover. 

“Bakers are still going to be focused on cost-effective and value-added automation, especially in the areas of packaging where repetitive motion is used,” said Josh Becker, product manager for bakery/confection, Harpak-Ulma. “Bakers want to solve the challenge of reducing/eliminating those tasks so that their employees can focus on higher profile value-added work opportunities.” 

Advancements in automated sorting, including vision systems and sorting robots, offer much-needed labor savings, noted Michael King, director of packaging solutions, Weber.

“This not only speeds up the sorting process but also improves accuracy and consistency, reducing the need for manual sorting and supervision,” he explained. 

 On bun and roll lines, bakers can reduce labor costs by optimizing their feed systems between cooling and packaging, said Justin Atkins, director of sales, Bettendorf Stanford.

“Automating the lane balancing and the laning of product can reduce the need for indexer operators on packaging lines,” he observed. “We have been working with bakers a lot more recently to create solutions to reduce these touch points.”

While there are numerous opportunities to reduce headcount in the packaging department, this is unfortunately only half the labor battle. There is also a critical lack of skilled, experienced employees in many facilities today, and while packaging automation can reduce labor, the advanced systems put in their place may require a higher level of skill to operate.

“A significant amount of work has been done in the past few years to make this equipment much more intuitive,” Izquierdo said. “The time you used to have the operator running the equipment used to be sometimes decades. Now it’s shorter and shorter. If you’re thinking you’ll have an operator running your equipment for a year, and it’s going to take two months for them to feel comfortable using the equipment independently, you know it’s a problem.”

Intuitive equipment has been a growing focus for Heat and Control in its efforts to address the industry’s growing skill gap. 

“Some of our systems’ packaging technology improvements in recent years have been machinery that is easier to clean, that is easier to operate and that provides high efficiency with only a limited skill set required,” said Jeff Almond, industry manager, snack food packaging. “Heat and Control continues to focus on simplifying machine operations by eliminating decisions that need to be made on the processing line.”

Delkor System’s new Evo case packer similarly touts a simplified HMI for operators. 

“Incorporated into Evo is Rockwell’s new HMI platform known as Optix, which offers tremendous improvements with its operator interface for training and changeover, including the use of videos,” explained Dale Andersen, president and chief executive officer.

This article is an excerpt from the October 2024 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Packaging Innovation, click here.