The beverage industry is a fast-moving, innovative industry with high demands on design as well as safe filling and packaging processes. This is where complex shapes and highly synchronized machines, which have to safely handle sensitive materials such as glass bottles, meet with rigorous quality requirements. Just the right environment to show what is possible with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
Products have increasingly brief lifecycles, and innovation development times are becoming shorter and shorter. At the same time, product complexity and consumer expectations are increasing. As a result, the development of products and packages, as well as the associated production and packaging systems, must become faster and more efficient. The high degree of complexity increases the risk for errors, but there must be no drop in quality. These contradictory requirements can no longer be met by the traditional, serial design organization in which the package was first developed and the development of production and packaging systems was started. And especially not in today’s standard hierarchical supply chains, which bring together globally-dispersed companies.
Mastering the Challenge of Special Packaging
Everyone knows the diversity of special packaging activities in the beverage industry. For example, at football World Cups or other events for which special packaging is developed and processed. Bottles and cans are not simply randomly placed in the packaging, but are oriented in a specific way so that the packaging stands out from competitive products on the shelf. The packaging must both appeal to the customer and, at the same time, be high quality.
Acting More Directly on the Market
Westrock, a global manufacturer of packaging and packaging equipment based in the U.S., is closely involved in the processes of its customers, thanks to the Dassault Systemes 3DEXPERIENCE platform and the solutions of Bosch Rexroth. WestRock acts directly from “Insights to In-Market”. As an example, when producing carton packs for beverages, Westrock creates packaging design and the corresponding machine or adaptations to existing machines practically in parallel. This parallelization requires that many of the design, test and validation steps that were previously carried out on the physical product can be carried out using virtual simulations. After all, the packaging machine is designed or modified at a time when real bottles or cans do not yet exist.
It is also no longer effective to take weeks to put the machines into operation.They must work perfectly on the first try. All processes are tested and verified on the digital model, including the installation tests for machine implementation. Ultimately, the beverage industry is increasingly focused on shortening the time to market.
WestRock, Bosch Rexroth and Dassault Systèmes Live at drinktec!
At drinktec – a beverage industry tradeshow in Munich Germany, open Sept. 11-15, 2007 – partners Dassault Systèmes, WestRock and Bosch Rexroth will be presenting an exemplary process of a control supplier, demonstrating the cooperation of all those involved in the process on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. State-of-the-art technologies such as the integration of Bosch Rexroth hardware into software simulation, augmented and virtual reality are also part of the presentation. The visit will be worth the while!
This post was originally published by our sister blog in Germany.
