Improving resource and energy efficiency of packaging machines: Contribution of an increasing format flexibility

Manufacturers and users of packaging machines are facing two significant challenges: the improvement of the sustainability and the enhancement of the format flexibility. The sustainability of products is becoming a more important influencing factor for the consumer buying behavior. Therefore, the increase of the energy and resource efficiency of packaging machines is a very promising strategy to achieve this goal. At first glance no correlation between format flexibility and sustainability seems to exist. But in fact, both topics partly depend on each other. These connections are the focus of this paper. Exemplary for sustainability, the resource and energy efficiency in the context of packaging machines will be considered. As a further detailing, this paper also contains an experimental investigation of a more format flexible and sustainable processing technology for sealing. Therefore, the heat-impulse technology was investigated.