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How data can help you to get a wage increase in manufacturing. Boost your income with simple steps

Manufacturing is still the 1st employer in the EU and 5th in the US. The strength of the industry can be seen in various global reports and companies have revolutionized the way they produce goods and products. And these changes lead to incredible opportunities for professionals who constantly prepare and train themselves. This naturally drives us to other possibilities: better jobs, vertical promotions, and internal salary increases. But how do you combine digital transformation/data with professional opportunities? This is the intent of this short guide. Be aware of your company's main numbers and goals Having clear information on the numbers that matter most to your plant is critical (outside the plant as well). It will make you reason about the data in your area and in your own work more clearly. In this way, your actions will be focused on generating value for your daily performance, for your sector, and for the company's objectives. Knowing these numerical details can make all the difference in the next steps of your career. If you don't know these numbers yet, ask your boss about them. Simple like that! Show interest and your life is going to be easier, you will…

How you can adopt Post-Consumer Recycled to make your Packaging Industry greener

Sustainability is the number one question for packaging manufacturers around the world. Brands from all over the world have established environmental goals. They are demanding for a sustainable product from the packaging industry and seeking to reduce their carbon footprint. The easiest approach for them to achieve this goal is requesting from the packaging industry an ecological friendly packaging like Post-Consumer Recycled packaging. The three main sustainable options for environmentally responsible packaging are recyclable, biodegradable and post-consumer recycled. Recyclable can be reprocessed into new products after they have been used, biodegradable packaging has an ability to break down naturally into non-toxic component substances and the post-consumer recycled (PCR) is a collected, cleaned, reprocessed and remade material that consumers have already used and discarded. A local recycling facility collects these used materials, such as aluminium, paper, plastic and cardboard, separates them by type and sells them to companies that seek to reprocess it into a new product. The biggest impact of using PCR materials on packaging is reducing your factory's carbon footprint. For example, on the last ADF Digital Days, Dr. Martin Hartmann, Head of Corporate Quality Management of Nussbaum, explained that it takes 6.7g of CO2 to…

How to convince your boss to bet on digital transformation

We are already familiar with the story of having to convince someone about digital transformation: you found a fast, cheap and efficient solution for your factory, you left the last project meeting excited, but you still don't know how to persuade your boss. The ROI is positive, he can take a lot of benefits from it, so can you, and the company will win. But you can't make him/her jump in. It can be frustrating to go through a situation like the one above. But the idea of this article is to help you implement something new by convincing your boss of how important it is for everyone. And that's the first tip: everyone needs to realize that they are winning. First of all: it's all about negotiation Like it or not, you are a negotiator. Negotiation is a fact of life. These two sentences open one of the most important and best-selling books on the art of negotiating, "Getting to Yes" (Penguin Books), by authors William L. Ury, Roger Fisher. If we are all the time making agreements and resolving conflicts of interest in our lives, it is also true that, in a negotiation, the road…

PackIOT has been shortlisted for NOS and AWS innovation program on 5G

We are honored to announce that we have been selected to be part of the 5G Accelerator - Collaborative innovation program is an initiative by NOS and AWS (Amazon Web Services), in partnership with Startup Lisboa, to accelerate 5G transformation and innovation in Portugal. With much faster speeds (up to 10 times faster than 4G), low latency (instant and real-time response to any command), and the ability to connect millions of devices, 5G will be one of the main drivers of the digital economy. There were only 15 companies selected from a list of hundreds of competitors, and PackIOT is the only one focused 100% on technology for the manufacturing industry. "We are very excited to be part of this program. 5G technology is going to have a big impact on production processes and in the digital transformation of the industry. And this is all part of our mission and vision"- Cristiano Wuerzius, CEO of PackIOT. With this program, NOS and AWS intend to support the construction of an ecosystem of innovation and 5G entrepreneurship ecosystem in Portugal, leading the digital transformation and fostering the creation of opportunities associated with the new mobile technology.

Lean Manufacturing Implementation: from zero to hero

For any type of business that wants to be successful, they will need to understand and fully implement the lean manufacturing principles. This is a business concept that has been around for decades but it is only now that the actual effects of the lean manufacturing method are being felt. If you go back to the 1970s, many large corporations tried to use lean manufacturing methods as a way to cut costs and improve productivity. But now, almost every major company that you look to for a new job or even an employee is doing this. What is Lean Manufacturing? Lean manufacturing, or Lean production, is a management philosophy from the Toyota Production System that focuses on reducing the seven types of waste (overproduction, lead time, transportation, overprocessing, inventory, motion, and defects). By eliminating this waste, quality improves and production time and costs decrease. Lean tools include continuous review processes (kaizen), pull production (in the kanban sense), and fail-safe elements/processes (Poka-Yoke). Lean Manufacturing was developed by Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno during Japan's post-World War II reconstruction period. The term was coined in 1988 by John Krafcik, but more clearly defined and popularized by James P. Womack and…

How finance professionals play a key role on digital transformation in manufacturing

A worldwide survey by KPMG carried out in partnership with Forbes, entitled"Digital Transformation", pointed out that 79% of 261 CFOs had already started the digital transformation procedure in the companies they lead. The poll also showed that this movement has opened the way for the introduction of more advanced emerging technology such as large data, computer vision, and machine learning. These capacities can provide information and help companies respond more efficiently to business fluctuations. The intelligent automation provides professionals with the essential information-gathering tools for decision making and enables them to concentrate more on approach. "What we've seen, lately, is that this procedure has also been intensified in the finance function in the other organizations due to the urgent need for automation which has arisen in the face of the challenges imposed by the social distancing determined as a health measure to fight Covid-19", points KPMG. In our daily dealings with factories in a variety of areas of the planet, we've seen many fund managers who are more open to electronic transformation. The covid-19 pandemic has accelerated this process, sometimes in a tumultuous manner. But we believe it is a road with no turning back. Contracts are…

Digital Maturity in the Packaging Industry Benchmark Report

PackIOT decided to create a Benchmark Report to understand how digital mature are the packaging manufacturers around the globe. The goal of this benchmark report is to help the packaging industries to have a better understanding of itself during the journey through Digital Transformation. If the Digital Transformation could be defined as the attempt of companies and businesses to use technology and tools to innovate certain processes and products within the enterprise environment, the Digital Maturity would be the stage that the company is during this transformation. A digital mature organization is more prepared to respond and take advantage of technological innovations. And that is why you should get a full understanding of what is your stage of Digital Maturity and where you are among the whole packaging industries. To build a complete report, we are approaching themes like: the importance of a transparent, easy and accessible information flow inside the factory; how involving people with different specializations in specific projects can bring success to your company; real-time data collection to see the trends, get insights and identify what is harming the manufacturing proccess; using the fast information flow to act upon unexpected problems in a short period of time; and…

The Cosmetics Industry Is Being Transformed By Industry 4.0

By Mariana Costa, Marketing Specialist at PackIOT Today, more than ever before, the beauty and cosmetics industry is starting to experience what it is like to have technological innovation at the heart of its value chain, contributing to higher performances, greater agility and flexibility. This not only applies to the consumer but also to the employees since it simplifies and facilitates their everyday and enables better ergonomics. What does innovating mean? Not only means to be able to rely on the expertise of the teams but doing so while adopting the latest 4.0 technologies with cutting-edge capabilities, to create the most efficient solutions and conditions both for employees and consumers. We have already mentioned several times how Industry 4.0 and technological innovation concerns all parties of the value chain and the different fields of an industrial group, such as: research and development, environment, design, production and digital, for example. It is also crucial for operations and performance management. This is an omnipresent component from design to distribution, product development and manufacturing. Production processes in the cosmetics industry will only become more networked. Centrally controlled plants will be replaced by production systems which allow the communication between machines,…

The 4 Steps to Own Your Digital Transformation Journey In Flexible Packaging

By Mariana Costa, Marketing Specialist at PackIOT You may be wondering, “Why should I do It?”, “Why should I adopt Industry 4.0 and digital transformation in my factory?”, “I can collect data for my company but sharing it might be a risk against my competitive advantages!”. In this blog post, we will answer all these questions and more by showing you how Industry 4.0 is here to stay in the Flexible Packaging industry. So, with this in mind, let’s ask the question again: Why should you accelerate digital transformation? When we talk about Digital Transformation in its full potential we are considering a journey towards a fully connected and transparent value chain, from the suppliers to the brand owners or from the retailers to the consumers.´ We all have expectations regarding each participant of the value chain. For example, we expect suppliers to have the best quality, at the best price and at the right time. But have you ever stopped to think about your daily operation? It’s normal to run after a constant fix-the-machine-and-run mindset to stay on the safe side, it’s human and natural. Nevertheless, there is a price to pay for this safety called…

How AI and Aluminium Join Forces Towards a Lower Carbon Future

By Mariana Costa, Marketing Specialist at PackIOT More and more, throughout the time, we can hear urgent and important discussions being raised regarding climate change, global warming and sustainable development. Recently, Covid-19 has disrupted our lives and economies in an unprecedented way. Societies are now experiencing an immediate need to protect lives and livelihoods which heightens the urgency of following a strict and necessary climate agenda. This has not come up as just a moral question but also as serious danger for the global ecosystems and economy if nothing is done and implemented systemically. With this urgency, artificial intelligence has been pointed out as an important and key tool to adopt responsible business practices. But not only that... When we envision a more sustainable and lower carbon future, we can think about different routes and possibilities to achieve these goals. One is investing in research and development and in the improvement of existing technologies like AI; the other is betting on using renewable energy in order to produce materials. But there is a third one called aluminium. 1_AI: Optimization For The Environment Artificial intelligence that is properly incorporated into the ecosystem can be the way towards a…