Safety and Security for US packagers

What solutions does Pilz offer the packaging industry in the USA?

Pack­aging is an impor­tant sector of the US economy. There is a large OEM market and a large oper­ator market. Almost half of all food and bev­erage com­pa­nies world­wide are based in the USA – with over 30,000 loca­tions within US bor­ders. You’ll find a wide variety of machines on the market: filling sys­tems, sorting machines or end-of-line pal­letisers are just some exam­ples.

Today, fast cycle times and the employed robotics place high demands on the machinery safety of pack­aging machines. The issue of secu­rity is becoming increas­ingly impor­tant, espe­cially at pro­duc­tion level, due to the growing com­plexity and net­working of machines and the new secu­rity require­ments, including those for digi­ti­sa­tion. In addi­tion, many pack­aging machine oper­a­tors in the USA operate world­wide. In this case Pilz USA can offer global solu­tions, such as the CE marking ser­vice for machinery that will be exported to Europe, for example, or advice on NR12 when exporting to Brazil.

What distinguishes Pilz solutions for this industry?

Tech­no­log­i­cally, the US pack­aging market can be divided into three areas: estab­lished automa­tion tech­nology, high-speed appli­ca­tions and robotics. Our offer: to deliver com­pre­hen­sive, safe automa­tion solu­tions that can easily be inte­grated into existing machines in these areas. These include solu­tions using our I/O system PSSuniversal2, which enables seam­less con­nec­tion to Ethernet/IP CIP Safety and Profinet/Profisafe net­work topolo­gies. Or our solu­tions for EtherCAT FSOE, which can be used to inte­grate motion sys­tems into com­pletely safe automa­tion sys­tems. This phi­los­ophy enables inte­grated solu­tions with prod­ucts from other sup­pliers

What dis­tin­guishes Pilz is a holistic approach to pack­aging, including Safety & Secu­rity. Pilz is also com­mitted to global com­pli­ance and offers local sup­port on site. An inter­na­tional net­work of experts and dis­trib­u­tors sup­ports cus­tomers who want to use their safety solu­tions world­wide.

In November this year Pilz will be at the packaging trade show Pack Expo in Chicago – what can visitors expect?

In November we will be at Pack Expo in Chicago, pre­senting our latest inno­va­tions and solu­tions specif­i­cally for the pack­aging industry. Vis­i­tors can expect a com­pre­hen­sive range of safety and automa­tion solu­tions, including our safety gate solu­tions for robotics appli­ca­tions. Con­nec­tivity for Eth­er­net/IP-CIP secu­rity net­works is also a theme at the trade show. And we’ll be pre­senting spe­cific pack­aging appli­ca­tions, such as our safe card­board feed for carton erec­tors. We will also be focusing on new tech­nolo­gies – in par­tic­ular IO-Link Safety.

At Pack Expo we are looking for­ward to speaking to industry experts such as OEMs, system inte­gra­tors and end users – about market require­ments, for example, as well as Pilz’s inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies and how they guar­antee both the safety and pro­duc­tivity of pack­aging appli­ca­tions.