It's the final day of Pack Expo 2012! Just as organizers expected, this year's event has turned out to be record-breaking in terms of attendance. For real-time updates during the last leg of the show, be sure to follow us on Twitter at @BWCnews. For some fun giveaways and good linear motion conversation, visit the BWC team at booth #N-5726.
[ WATCH ] When we express worry about finding a future skilled workforce, we're definitely not talking about the kids participating in FIRST, a global competitive robotics league that teaches kids the art of engineering and building robots. Pack Expo hosted several FIRST leagues, including this one, dubbed team "Mechatronics", from Minnesota, which showed off a robotic prototype the kids plan to use in next year's competitions. We're proud FIRST sponsors ourselves, so you can expect lots more info about the program as the school year progresses.
[ READ ] Packaging Machinery Technology is the magazine published by PMMI, the hosting organization that puts on PackExpo. In it, we found lots of interesting articles about new technologies in packaging and processing, but also some columns that stirred up some provocative discussion. Here's one about sustainability that piqued our interest — it asks if the term "sustainable packaging" may be impractical. A recent report by an industry think tank deemed the term to generic to hold any weight and that the term itself should be "substituted with a more balanced view of efficient packaging." That means streamlined operation spanning the entire product life cycle, from sourcing materials to production, delivery, disposal and recycling. What do you think?
[ LISTEN ] A shortage of mechatronics engineers prevents more advancements in the packaging industry, according to executives from packaging machinery manufacturer Schneider Packaging, who discuss the issue in this podcast published in Packaging World. It's an older podcast, but follow-up articles suggest the lack of mechatronics expertise in the workforce has halted development for some companies. Has your company made efforts to beef up its roster of mechatronics engineers?
[ DO ] This one's easy! Definitely "do" come to our Pack Expo booth N-5726 to check out one of our linear motion product debuts, chat with our guided motion experts and find out just why our motion control systems based on DualVee® Motion Technology remain the best in the packaging processing industry.
