Designing Your First PackML Implementation For Machine Control

Three key design decisions to get you started

There can be no doubt that a majority of controls engineers in the packaging industry have at least heard of the term “PackML” by now. For the past two years, Dr. Bryan Griffen, co-chair of the OMAC Packaging Workgroup and Electrical and Automation Group Manager at Nestlé, has led a renewed effort to communicate the benefits of PackML at nearly every industry trade show and conference (Campbell, 2011). But understanding how PackML is actually implemented on a real machine, and having experience in designing and coding such an implementation is likely a different story. For many engineers in the packaging industry, and for nearly all engineers outside the industry, PackML remains an amorphous concept, not completely understood and missing a clear best practice for getting started. This Tactical Brief will set aside the discussions of ‘Why PackML?’ and instead focus on ‘How PackML’ so that controls engineers in any industry can better understand the design and implementation process.