The Future of Packaging Automation with China’s Industrial Upgrading

2023-08-13

Under the tide of Industry 4.0, new technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and robotics have been cited by various industries to continuously promote the effective upgrading of industrial productivity and production models and the development of intelligent manufacturing. How can the packaging industry, which is one of the important components of the manufacturing industry, become intelligent?

The intelligence of packaging equipment

As the world’s second-largest packaging country, China has benefited from the convenience that packaging brings to people and the rapid development of industries such as e-commerce, which has promoted the packaging market to become increasingly prosperous. At present, China’s packaging production is basically traditional mechanized equipment, including packaging machines, filling machines, coding machines, sealing machines, labeling machines, etc., which cannot meet the current market demand. Therefore, intelligence will be the first step in the upgrading of the packaging industry.

Up to now, the proportion of automation in China’s packaging machinery has exceeded half, which has laid a good foundation for the development of intelligence. In the next 3 to 5 years, with the further expansion of the scale of China’s packaging machinery market, with the blessing of the Internet of Things, the Industrial Internet, artificial intelligence, and 5G technology, China’s packaging equipment will be fully intelligent.

With the advancement of the intelligent process of packaging machinery and equipment, in addition to solving the problem of high labor costs, it has also greatly enhanced the penetration rate of China’s packaging market and further expanded the packaging market. At the same time, it has also driven the upstream and downstream industrial chains to realize intelligence, thereby promoting the transformation and upgrading of China’s packaging industry.

The intelligence of packaging products

What is the intelligence of packaging products? That is, intelligent packaging, through the renewal of packaging materials, the transformation of packaging structure, and the management and integration of packaging information, to achieve the humanization and intelligence requirements, purposes or effectiveness of the packaged goods.

As people have higher requirements for quality of life, they have also paid more attention to packaging services, such as beauty, greenness, environmental protection, and cheapness. At the same time, it reflects commodity information and commodity protection. Therefore, insurance technology, water-soluble film technology, two-dimensional code technology, texture anti-counterfeiting technology, magnetic resonance radio frequency anti-counterfeiting identification technology, etc. can be used to create smart packaging that is more applicable and more sought after by customers. Using these packages to communicate and interact with customers to achieve information can not only bring users a smarter application experience, but also drive the rapid development of the enterprise itself.

In short, the intelligence of packaging products is a key measure to solve the three major problems of industry inventory life cycle management, product integrity, and user experience. It is also to promote the overall intelligent upgrading of the packaging industry.

Comprehensive intelligence to drive the market

At present, China’s packaging automation solution is still in the growth stage. Data show that compared with developed countries, China’s packaging consumption is low, the market penetration rate needs to be improved, and the market space and potential have yet to be further released. Therefore, it is necessary to start the comprehensive intelligence of the packaging industry chain. On the one hand, the intelligent upgrading of packaging manufacturing machinery and upstream and downstream enterprises will effectively improve the efficiency of packaging production and product performance, and bring greater benefits and value to industry enterprises; on the other hand, the comprehensive intelligence of packaging products and the industrial chain will also promote the upgrading of packaging technology, production capacity and design, bring diversified experiences to consumers, and promote the further expansion of the industry.

In short, the transformation of China’s packaging industry to intelligence is not an overnight achievement, and capital, technology and other issues need to be solved. Based on long-term development, in the future, China’s packaging industry is bound to gradually realize intelligent upgrading and transformation.