Video Transcript

We have Vice President of PAC Machinery Greg Burguig with us welcome Greg. Hi Shannon thank you and you’re going to talk to us a little bit today about a successful implementation with new packaging equipment. Correct yes absolutely I would love to share a little experience on that.

Q-So tell us a little bit about that some advice you might have for customers.

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s so important right. I mean people are looking for a packaging solution. This is an investment in their business I mean just think about like buying something for your home right. I don’t know it’s like a new lawnmower or something like that. I mean typically you do quite a bit of research you get recommendations. You make sure it’s the right fit for what you’re doing and you know and a lawn mower only cuts your lawn in this case our equipment is going to make you more productive in your business and save you money or allow you to produce more product or you know get more things out the door so I think it you know my first suggestion.

I think there’s three things really first thing is really do your homework when looking for a solution. You know don’t just get the same machine again. Look what’s changed since the last time you implemented packaging automation. I think that’s extremely important if you think you found a way of doing it during that stage like you know talk to people and ask them what are other ways that something can be packaged. View it as really a partnership. I’d say between the manufacturer you’re working with or you know packaging distributor or whatnot in your team I mean don’t just say you know “hey can I get a quote on this tabletop sealing machine or what’s the price of that or here’s what I’m doing what do you recommend,” right.? It should be a conversation and it should be multiple conversations because you know inevitably we see it all the time. It’s like we’re talking yeah I want to put a product in the bag. I want to seal it. I was like great what are you printing on the bag? No we’re not doing printing. Okay perfect. Then it’s like you have a follow-up call where you’re going to talk about the proposal and inevitably you get somebody from your team and they say “hey what about the labels?” Then you’re saying the labels I thought you weren’t doing any printing. No, we’re doing printing we just apply a label afterwards. Well, okay you know that’s a great opportunity to kind of remove a step in the process.

The second thing if you’re making this investment go and see the machine before it ships right? Like bring sample products go there make sure that like everything you understood and was explained that there’s a match and that it’s actually doing what you expect it to do. This is for the packager right? So if I’m packaging stuff, I want to make sure and for us the manufacturer, we want to do a good job. We don’t want to have to you know the solution. I thought that the print was going to be four inches wide and you have a two-inch-wide printer. Well that’s Mr. customer that’s what you ordered from the proposal. I gave you the thing so go there every manufacturer wants you can go see the facility. Go meet the people. Go talk to the technicians like before the machine shifts it’s a lot easier than when it’s been created it’s been sent around the country and it’s been uncrated, installed and it’s in place and connected. I can’t stress that’s pretty critical. It’s something that’s super expensive and you want to make sure that your products are going to be running right and correct on there and the machine’s going to do everything that it’s supposed to do. Then you know once you’ve talked through it and things like that and probably will but what does it hurt like go there maybe you’ll get some extra training. You’ll get some tips You’ll learn something. Maybe there’s an adjustment that needed to be made. You know a lot of times they’re like oh you know this is the product I’m gonna run and then it turns out that like oh well we have this one that’s six-inch diameter ring. Well the bags are in size for that it’s a good thing that you’re here so let’s go through inside the bags or you can make some adjustments. It’s a lot easier to do that before the equipment leaves the manufacturer’s facility sure what can a company do I guess when the machine arrives and it’s at their business. What can they do on their end to make sure that things go successfully?

So I talked to you about making sure it’s a partnership and scoping out the equipment or the solution too and because there’s many different ways to package your product, once you have the solution and it’s not true for everything but especially with automation, go see it before it leaves. Go to the FAT- the factory acceptance test and take advantage of that. Once you get the solution startup and training have somebody from the factory go and install that piece of equipment or train your team or be there. Depending on the equipment it’s either typically a one or two day process some of our larger automatic baggers or a flow wrapper or automatic shrink things like that. It’s two days it’s really one day of the tech going in. They set up fine tune. You got the product, the film etc. Day two is really running a production and it’s that time for people to ask questions to be retrained right like I can tell you something but until you do it and then do it again and sleep on it and things like that like you don’t become an expert so take advantage of that. I mean yeah absolutely! We want nothing more than to have you have this machine last you 10, 20, 30 years and run optimally so technician start up and training. We’ve also started retraining.  Somebody came out and they trained that’s great but like inevitably you’re going to forget things. There’s sometimes a little turnover in people sometimes so production people happens so you know maybe get a retraining have somebody come back in 30, 60, 90 days just for a day or two. I mean sure it’s a couple thousand dollars but it’s an investment like the whole thing is an investment in your business so you’ll learn something new. You know we noticed that this seems to be happening. The film comes out of the former oh okay well these are the factory settings we recommended for the former looks like somebody made an adjustment, no big deal like here I’ll show you how to make it run better so you know once it’s run through a couple weeks, it’s only a couple weeks of production turnover. You know a lot of times maybe they didn’t load the film quite right. They missed the roller I mean there’s a diagram but this is all new right so you know get startup and training and get retraining. View it as a long-term partnership because I think certainly PAC machinery and you know others in the industry that that I know want you to do a good job and we want it to be a long-term solution. It’s not just oh well there’s the opportunity for more machines like you bought the first machine. We built it like we want it to run well for your business.

Q- Well Greg anything else you want to cover in this topic today?

I think those are really my three keys for successful packaging automation implementation. One it’s a partnership with the manufacturer. Treat it that way. The manufacturer will appreciate that as well. Two- if you’ve invested in a solution make sure that you know before it ships or whatnot. I would encourage even if it’s just a video or virtually or you know the best is to go to the factory and see that the equipment does everything you expect it to do and thought and you know everyone is on the same page. Three- once you have it, get trained professionals to come and train your team and make you the experts and if you do that I mean I think it’s certainly a win-win and you’ll be happy for a long time.

Well thanks a lot for your time today Greg we appreciate it. My pleasure have a great one Shannon. All right, you too