Over 380 people were in attendance at the Crown Towers last night when the APPMA announced the winners for the 2015 APPMA Industry Excellence Awards.
Awards categories include Best New Product Award, APPMA Scholarship, Export Achievement Award, Design Achievement Award, Imported Equipment Award and the Customer Participation Award.
2015 Best New Product Award
The 2015 Best New Product Award winner is HMPS for the Coffee Pod Cartoning Machine.
This HMPS8000 is a carton erector and robotic pick and place system for small pre-sealed product (pods), and is manufactured at HMPS in Adelaide, Australia. The major requirements of the coffee pod cartooning machine were to provide a means of conveying the coffee pods from two different types of filling machines to the HMPS8000 Carton Packing Cell, with the proviso that either system could be used with minor changes required.
The finalists were CLP Casepacker (Case Packing Systems), Skyfall conveyor system (Denipro), Coffee Pod Cartoning Machine (HMPS), HEUFT prime (Heuft SystemTechnik GMBH), Packaging Safety System (SICK), Domino A520i IP66 inkjet printer (insignia), IRB1200 Case Packing Robot (ABB Australia), A-Series Label Printer Applicator (Matthews Australasia) and Ulysses Shelf Ready Case Packer (Walls Machinery/Adaptapack).
Two High Commendations were awarded; HEUFT Systemtechnik GMBH for the HEUFT prime and Walls Machinery/Adaptapack for the Ulysses Shelf Ready Case Packer.
2015 APPMA Scholarship
The winners of the 2015 APPMA Scholarship are Alysha Baggett, Packaging Technologist, Frucor Beverages and Alexandra Brayshaw, Accessibility Design Researcher, Arthritis Australia.
The seventh annual scholarship program enables one person each year to study a Diploma in Packaging Technology. Due to the quality submissions that were received this year the APPMA has agreed to provide two scholarships to the value of $20,000.
The two other finalists were Marianna McEwan, Contract Packaging Technologist, Frucor Beverages and Mona Parnian, Quality Systems Engineer, Wellman Packaging.
2015 Export Achievement Award
The 2015 Export Achievement Award winner is GP GRADERS for the Airjet Cherry Defect Grader.
GP Graders is an Australian exporting success story. Now a globally renowned business and industry leader, the company is the largest supplier of turnkey fruit grading and packaging machinery in Australia, with over 875 fruit packing lines installed.
A High Commendation was awarded to HMPS for their South African Pet Food Packaging.
2015 Design Achievement Award
The 2015 Design Achievement Award Winner is Machinery Automation & Robotics for Container Loading.
The solution is automated container loading primarily for chilled cartons. Although some semi-automated or load assistance devices exist for container packing of frozen cartons, MAR saw a need to develop alternative solutions where chilled meat cartons were being packed in containers for shipping. Design and technology arose from a need of a more reliable, efficient, productive and safer container loading process. The automated container loading was developed to address the problems of manual labour handling of the packages which includes high labour costs, Reject Reduction, OH&S, Rates, Traceability, Quality and Automation. The solution includes a world-class vision system and quality assurance technology that is able to trace every single package and remove any damaged cartons and highlights accuracy, efficiency, productivity and safety.
Two High Commendations were awarded; Fibre King for Oryx De Erector and Heat and Control for the Fastback Revolution Mid-Gate.
2015 Imported Equipment Award
The 2015 Imported Equipment Award winner is AAA Packaging Supplies for the C-One Plana Pallet Wrapper.
A High Commendation was awarded to MPI Australia/Automated Packaging Systems for the Mail Order Fulfilment.
2015 Customer Participation Award
The 2015 Customer Participation Award winner is Fibre King.
The project reduced manual handling of RPCs for the end-user and the Proof of Concept for the Oryx De Erector created a partnership between manufacturer and end user that enabled both parties to create value through lower overall cost of use per RPC for the end-user and future demand for De Erectors and RPC Automation for Fibre King. The Oryx De Erector enabled the end-user to fully automate the De Erect Process, running random crates sizes, at the required speeds.