History and Development of China's Packaging Machinery Industry

Packaging machinery has developed with the emergence of new packaging materials and the continuous innovation of packaging technology. The papermaking technology invented in China has historically provided conditions for the production of paper packaging. In 1850, the world paper price plunged sharply, and paper packaging began to be used in food. In 1852, Wally in the United States invented a paper bag making machine, which led to the emergence of paper product machinery. In 1861, Germany established the world's first packaging machinery factory, and produced a fully automatic forming, filling and sealing machine in 1911. China's packaging machinery started late. After more than 20 years of development, China's packaging machinery has become one of the top ten industries in the machinery industry, providing an effective guarantee for the rapid development of China's packaging industry. Some packaging machinery has filled the domestic gap and can basically meet the needs of the domestic market. Some products are still exported. China's packaging machinery exports are less than 5% of the total output value, but its imports are roughly the same as the total output value, which is far from that of developed countries. Products in China's packaging machinery industry. From the point of view of product structure, there are only more than 1,300 kinds of packaging machinery in China. The supporting quantity is small, and the lack of high-precision and large-scale products cannot meet market demand: the product quality gap is manifested in low product performance, poor stability and reliability, unsightly appearance, rough surface treatment, poor quality of many components, short life, low reliability, affecting the overall product quality; From the perspective of enterprise status, there is a lack of leading enterprises in the domestic packaging machinery industry, and there are not many enterprises with large production scale and high product quality; from the perspective of product development, China is still basically stuck in the stage of testing and imitation, with weak self-development capabilities and lack of scientific research. At the production pilot base, scientific research funding accounts for only 1% of sales, while foreign countries are as high as 8-10%. The technical level of China's packaging machinery is 20 years behind that of advanced countries, and it is at a disadvantage in the competition in product development, performance, quality, reliability, and service.

Under the premise of continuous development, in the packaging industry, it can be seen that there are many contradictions in the packaging machinery industry. Enterprises cannot cope with the changes in the situation, and the development ideas and concepts of the industry are not compatible with the development of the situation; technological innovation capabilities are weak, technological progress is slow, and new product development has not fundamentally gotten rid of the situation of imitation and research tracking. Competitiveness is not strong, and economic growth and efficiency improvement are still mainly driven by scale. In addition, there are still some packaging machinery enterprises with extensive enterprise management, and refined management has not yet been realized; market awareness, competition awareness, and distress awareness are not strong, the awareness of serving the market, serving customers, and the sense of urgency and responsibility for development are not strong, and some packaging machinery enterprises' understanding and use of people are not compatible with the laws of the market economy and other phenomena. In the face of unfavorable factors, the most urgent thing is to change the development methods of various enterprises in the packaging machinery industry. Enterprises must stand at a new starting point to examine and solve the above contradictions and problems, change their development concepts, strengthen independent innovation, enhance market awareness, and vigorously promote the development of the domestic packaging machinery industry. To change the status quo of the packaging machinery industry and promote the development of packaging machinery, the industry should pay attention to the development trend of packaging machinery while making great strides.

With the continuous development and progress of science and technology, the emergence of various food processed products has put forward new requirements for packaging technology and packaging equipment, and packaging machinery is playing an increasing role in the field of circulation. The competition for packaging machinery is becoming increasingly fierce, and highly automated, intelligent, multi-functional, high-efficiency and low-consumption packaging equipment is increasingly favored by the industry. The degree of automation of process processes is getting higher and higher. Automation technology has accounted for more than 50% of packaging production lines. Computer design and mechatronics control are extensively used to improve productivity, equipment flexibility and flexibility, and increase manipulators to complete complex packaging actions. Each manipulator is controlled by a separate computer, and the camera monitors the packaging action and feeds the information back to the computer to adjust the amplitude of the action to ensure the quality of the packaging. Soon packaging machinery will be innovating emerging industries. The countries with high levels of foreign packaging and food machinery are mainly the United States, Germany, Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom. German packaging machinery is in a leading position in terms of design, manufacturing and technical performance.

The Development Trend of Packaging Machinery

After more than 20 years of development, China's packaging machinery has become one of the top ten industries in the machinery industry, both in terms of output and output value, it has achieved remarkable achievements.

Purchase packaging machinery from China has been a principle issue with the development of China's packaging machinery industry. The "China Packaging Machinery Servo System Industry Market Research and Development Prospect Analysis Report" [1] shows that from January to December 2011, the total sales revenue of the packaging special Equipment manufacturing industry reached 23.2141 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.39%, higher than the industrial average. In 2011, the industry's sales growth rate was relatively fast.

From January to September 2012, the total sales revenue of the packaging special equipment manufacturing industry reached 17.9445 billion yuan, an increase of 15.17% year-on-year, higher than the industrial average. From January to December 2012, the cumulative output of special packaging equipment in the country was 86,926 units, an increase of 14.47% over the same period last year.

China has become the world's largest commodity producer and exporter. At the same time, global attention is also focused on the fastest growing, largest and most potential Chinese packaging market. Although the domestic packaging machinery market has broad prospects, issues such as stand-alone automation, poor stability and reliability, unsightly appearance, and short life have also caused domestic packaging machinery products to be criticized.

Safety testing technology: Safety is the number one key word in any industry, especially in the packaging industry. In the food industry, the development of safety testing technology is developing rapidly. The embodiment of food safety in packaging machinery is not only limited to the scope of simple physical parameters, but also pays attention to factors such as food color and raw materials. The scope of application of packaging machinery is expanding, so that new requirements are constantly being put forward for machinery manufacturers and automation product suppliers.

Motion control technology: The development of motion control technology in China is very rapid, but the development momentum in the packaging machinery industry is weak. The role of motion control products and technologies in packaging machinery is mainly to meet the requirements of precise position control and strict speed synchronization, and is mainly used in loading, unloading, conveying, marking, palletizing, depalletizing and other processes. Professor Li believes that motion control technology is one of the key factors that distinguish high-, medium- and low-end packaging machinery, and it is also the technical support for the upgrading of packaging machinery in our country.

Flexible production: In order to adapt to the fierce competition in the market, major enterprises have shorter and shorter product replacement cycles. It is understood that the production of cosmetics can generally change every three years, or even every quarter. At the same time, the production volume is relatively large, so high requirements are put forward for the flexibility and flexibility of packaging machinery: that is, the life of packaging machinery is much greater than the life cycle of the product. Because only in this way can it meet the requirements of product production economy. The concept of flexibility should be considered from three aspects: the flexibility of quantity, the flexibility of structure, and the flexibility of supply.

Manufacturing execution system: In recent years, integrated technology has developed rapidly in the packaging industry. There are many types of packaging machinery and equipment, which makes the product interface docking of different manufacturers, the transmission method between the equipment and the industrial computer, and the information and the equipment encounter great problems. In this case, packaging companies turned to manufacturing execution systems (MES) for solutions.

Zixin Yuan - Digital Marketing Coordinator at ÉLITER Packaging Machinery Website: https://www.eliter-packaging.com