Technology has always been at the heart of packaging. In the 1800s, state-of-the-art machinery was used to drive innovations in box making, bag production, and canning that laid the groundwork for the modern global supply chain. Today, that principle is truer than it has ever been. Yet today’s packaging converting lines have evolved into something quite different.

Now, they are almost alive – seamless, self-contained ecosystems that require increasingly minimal human interaction. Errors are anticipated, resources are used efficiently, and processes flow with surgical precision. Automation and AI make this technology leaner, smarter, and faster.

Solving specific problems

Mike Wilson, chief automation officer at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), states, “I started work in British Leyland over 40 years ago, and we were putting the first robots into production lines at that time. Now, obviously, the technology has moved on significantly, and over the last 10 years has been accelerating. That’s largely about two things. One is cost. It’s a lot less expensive than it used to be, and you get more performance for your money. But it’s also about capability. Robots are now being designed to solve specific problems.”

He highlights the Delta robots – the high-speed arm robots used for the kind of repetitive pick-and-place operations that are commonplace in manufacturing facilities. “The Delta robots on the packing lines were designed to carry relatively low payloads at very high speed, specifically for packing-type applications.

“They are now being enhanced by developments in their sensing and vision capabilities. And then, more recently, we’re seeing things like artificial intelligence being built into robot systems, actually helping increase the capability of automation systems, and at the same time, making them easier to apply and to operate,” says Wilson. “Now, it’s almost become plug-and-play.”

While the future is always hard to predict, one thing that is certain is that the world will always need packaging. This generational leap in automation will be essential in meeting the demands for an industry that has a continual need to scale up.

A holistic approach to a sustainable future

Balancing the dual need for scale and speed is the need to deliver both sustainably. This poses a number of questions around AI adoption and automated technology.

Joe Muscat, Environmental Stewardship and Innovation senior director at Haleon, sees its potential to offer a number of far-reaching benefits as the packaging industry evolves. “I think there’s been a huge move toward sustainability over the last 15, 20 years, and rightly or wrongly, when people talk about sustainability, people always tend to assume it’s a packaging thing. It isn’t. It’s much more holistic than that.

“However, there’s an opportunity for packaging to really lean in and lead the way in this topic. Post-consumer, AI can make a significant difference because the challenge with innovative materials is that they may be designed for recycling. However, if the machine can’t detect them or if the machine can’t pick products off a recycling line, then they’re just going to end up with residual waste and get landfilled or incinerated.

“We’ve seen enormous progress with vision-based systems that can basically look down the line and detect products and say, ‘This is a toothpaste tube, this is a milk bottle, this is a shampoo bottle.’ And based on the training, it can also detect the types of plastic it might be made of,” adds Muscat. “You couple that with robotics, and you can take a technology set that was designed for more efficient manufacturing to make a difference in terms of the end lifecycle of products.”

Proactive judgment

Arguably the biggest efficiency benefit of AI is its ability to support proactive and preventative approaches. This requires business leaders to be bold and rethink industry norms.

Emmanuel Ewah, innovation lead at Innovate UK, highlights its potential to revolutionize processes rather than simply iterate on them. “I think a lot of the time, people come to us and say, ‘Can you use AI to fix whatever problem?’ We then step back and say, ‘Is that a process problem or are you just papering over a crack rather than filling it in?’” he says.

However, he also argues human judgment is required when applying AI to ensure the greatest impact, or its sustainable potential could go unfulfilled.

“I think at the minute, everything is ‘The answer’s AI, what’s your problem?’ There needs to be a slight turn toward being a bit more specific,” remarks Ewah.

“AI can do a lot, for example, testing packaging without ever having to physically manufacture anything. There are many great use cases, from optimizing your supply chain to optimizing your R&D to reducing the amount of errors you’ve got across your assembly line, which end up with the end client or in callbacks.”

However, Ewah also warns against adopting AI without a specific plan in mind. “AI isn’t always the answer,” he states. “Especially when it comes to sustainability, you look at all the data centers that are coming to the UK. The majority of them are down to everybody wanting to use AI without really caring what the problem is. We’ve got a lot to learn, I think.”

Building a business case

Developing a strong business case for how AI and automation tools will be used ahead of time can help avoid many of the risks that come with investments in the latest technology. Muscat has real-world examples from his role at Haleon, which owns a number of healthcare and personal hygiene brands. “In our business, we made a huge investment to basically convert our toothpaste tubes to be recycle-ready by 2025,” he adds. “When we’re specifying something like this, what do we specify for? Are we specifying for today, which actually is probably making yesterday’s pack? Or are we trying to anticipate what we’ll be making in three years or five years?

“Putting a new machine or packing line in place costs millions of pounds. That’s where we need help, partly from the regulatory side to ensure clarity around what we’re actually shooting for, so that the thing we’re making in three, five, or 10 years is the right thing to be making.”

Wilson supports this view, adding, “Don’t be afraid of engaging with the supply chain. There’s an awful lot of businesses out there that assume it’s not appropriate for them. They’ve seen robots in the car industry, and they kind of get that, but smaller businesses go, ‘Well, okay, that’s fine, but we’re not the car industry, so we won’t do it.’

The near future does contain some risks – it always does – but the power of AI and automation also presents tremendous opportunities. The growing importance of AI and automation almost feels inevitable, but it’s down to those within the industry to use it wisely and maximize its impact.