Interview – Dinesh Mungi, Packaging Expert at B&R Industrial Automation
While having a contempo interaction with Dinesh Mungi, responsible for the automation business concern at B&R's Pune region and the company'due south resident packaging expert, we understood better how brand owners and contract packaging companies look at automation. Mungi reassured Packaging Southward Asia's editor Naresh Khanna that automation in packaging is not merely talk only is something that machine buyers await and the machine makers utilize to raise the bar against hyper-competition and price war.
PSA – Please speak virtually your visitor's interest and role in the packaging manufacture.
Dinesh Mungi: B&R is providing solutions for various packaging machines for many years and, together with the premium machine builders, has created many milestones. Packaging is i of the focused industries globally for us. We believe in providing complete solutions to our OEM past being a technology partner to them. We are typically not just selling products but always focus on solving customer challenges and making futuristic machines.
When a car architect approaches usa, nosotros e'er focus on the value-add together we tin introduce in their machine to accomplish better functioning and features that are of employ to their customers. So, we need to exist driving technology and understanding the trends to propose machine manufacturers to build in what is now required and exist future-ready.
OEMs need to adapt many customizations in their standard car to meet customer demands in today's scenario. So, having flexibility in automation solutions is a key gene for them. Allow me to give you an example, most of the VFFS machines have standard functionality with many selectable options. So, B&R has come with something that we call ospVFFS – a scalable out of the box solution. This is a plug-and-play solution for OEMs.
All the car configuration can be done from an HMI. The entire machine can be commissioned and started inside 3 hours. Information technology has terrific flexibility to configure from 1-centrality to 7-axis servo solutions with options to cull direct from the HMI screen.
PSA – Are the OEMs and end-users in Republic of india getting more than interested in automation?
Dinesh Mungi: Aye! In the packaging industry, much customization is happening, mainly driven by consumer demand. There are packaging automobile manufacturers who sell catalog products just catalog products with additional options or accessories or a customized solution. Here B&R offers a good solution.
Since we take a vast production handbasket, our role is to requite them the right product and to get them fix for the future right at the beginning. For instance, to future proof the OEMs motorcar design for IoT requirements right from the start. And then, since we come from a software background likewise, the OEM'southward say I need this selection and that pick. When we inquire them why, they say, 'When we become to sell our car and tell the customer that this is our standard auto, the customers say, conform it in our fashion.' Thus, at that place is a demand for automation from the finish-user likewise.
There is a need for flexibility, and there is a sensitivity to the need for automation. If I see today's scenario, the customers are looking for flexibility somewhere down the line. The definition of flexibility changes according to the make name. In that location are two kinds of flexibility – large brand owners ask for loftier automation, contactless product, and connectivity to the cloud. For the residue of the customers, flexibility ways packing different formats and products on the same motorcar, or what we would call mass customization. Can the same machine run three other products in a variety of designs with a simple changeover?
Today, the consumer demand is almost infinitely varied – if you go to any grocery store, you will see a 100 Rupee packet and a v Rupee parcel for the same product. It is a bulk guild for a contract packer, and he wants to complete it and change it to the following order. So, there are both kinds of demands for automation – one is for sophistication by the big make owners with in-house packaging plants. The other is for fulfilling the mass customization and fast changeover of generally, the contract packers.
PSA – How many of the packaging machine customers are looking to modernize or automate?
Dinesh Mungi:It started with few; I would say. A few of the OEM leaders who were sensitized said, 'Now many competitors are coming in, and since it is becoming more than of a price war, let usa do something more.' They started pushing upward the bar. They started speaking something different. Then in that location were the followers who said, 'I should too automate!'
But at present, the need is coming from the make owners and contract packers who want the flexibility. Currently, there is force per unit area from the end-users. 'If you want to sell your machine to me, I want information on the deject, and I want IoT implementation.' This kind of request started coming from the brand owners.
OEMs besides started speaking on this topic and learning the technologies and phrases of automation. And then they started saying, 'We will give y'all a PackML compliant automobile, or I will requite you lot a motorcar that is compliant to your IoT.' Of form, everybody had their solution, just they were neat to project these features. And even the smaller OEM is non behind in this case. They besides want to abound, and they run into an opportunity in modernization and automation.
PSA – What are the challenges for more than productive use of automation in packaging?
Dinesh Mungi: The challenge is understanding and adapting to the new technologies. For instance, IoT is a vast thing, and we need to create a better business relationship of the concepts, technologies, and its parts and the opportunities each attribute brings to the machine, to the user. For example, ease of operation, monitoring, maintenance, and free energy savings are a multiplicity of concepts.
Nevertheless, at that place has been an improvement in understanding over the by 18 months – in the pandemic. For instance, non accepted before, the industry has realized remote installation is possible, and they want information technology. Recently customers have asked for a remote diagnosis of a breakdown and asked if we tin fix it before sending an engineer or technician.
Too, companies have realized that they need trained and skilled people within their plants. Trained technicians are necessary to employ and benefit from the automation.
PSA – What are some of the other outcomes of the pandemic – and so far?
Dinesh Mungi: There is an increase in the utilise of machines for primary and secondary packaging. There is a large demand for primary packaging and finish of line solutions. The automation concept in terminate-of-line (EOL) for easily-free packaging is as well increasing with robotics. The use of vision for defect detection and other operations has improved a lot. Earlier it was at that place in pharma, simply it has expanded and spread to unlike segments recently.
Besides, the machine customers are talking well-nigh the ROI, and they want the machines to be faster. Withal, there is also a suspension or delay in some of the more than pregnant projects. As a result, major contract plants are property on before their controlling.
PSA – Finally and briefly, what is needed for the automation of packaging machines in Bharat?
Dinesh Mungi:For the automation of packaging and as well for exports, three things demand to be considered and are of import factors. Firstly, we need to build more servo-based and faster or high-speed machines. Secondly, nosotros demand to contain diagnostics – we need to inquire how far can I diagnose a breakdown, the condition of the machines in the market, and what aspect or module is possibly needing attention. And, lastly, the OEMs should exist thinking virtually building-in the internet connectivity of the auto.
PSA: Thank you. This sound advice could work for automating and modernizing practically any machine in any segment!
Source: https://packagingsouthasia.com/technology/dinesh-mungi-interview/
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