Force Control Industries’ offers a full lineup of motor brakes, clutches, and clutch-brakes in washdown configurations for food, chemical, and pharmaceutical processing applications. MagnaShear and Posistop motor brakes and Posidyne clutches and clutch-brakes are totally enclosed with heavy duty, cast housing which offers additional protection against moisture, water, saltwater, caustic spray, and chemicals.

Pack Expo International is produced by PMMI, the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. North America’s largest packaging event will bring together the solutions needed to launch new products and solve production issues. This article is PTE's second round of booth previews prior to the show.

At Pack Expo 2022, KUKA Robotics will feature several productivity enhancing automation solutions designed specifically for the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods industry sector. In Booth #N-6236, the company will spotlight its range of fully hygienic robots for food processing, picking, packaging, palletizing and advanced vision applications.

Walk into any gear manufacturing facility and you'll find legacy equipment that has been running successfully for decades. While these machines offer insight from a historical perspective, it's the equipment moving gears through production cells hinting at the factory of the future and the role robotics and automation will play. 

Every machine builder knows that they have to meet stringent safety requirements to protect workers from the risk of injury. If they build machines for the EU market, they should know that the European regulatory landscape is more advanced than in most other regions, with newer and more rigorous requirements for safety design and testing.

EU-equivalent safety capabilities are also being adopted by many non-European manufacturers despite the lack of specific in-country regulations. Sooner or later, every machine builder will need to offer functional safety capabilities or be left behind. Let’s look at what that means.

The Orbex Group, a manufacturer of high-performance electric motors and slip rings, introduces standard slip rings with an IP65 protection rating, providing washdown tolerance in many food, beverage and pharmaceutical manufacturing applications.

ABB recently announced it has signed an agreement to purchase Siemens’ low voltage NEMA motor business. With manufacturing operations in Guadalajara, Mexico, this acquisition provides a well-regarded product portfolio, a longstanding North American customer base, and an experienced operations, sales, and management team. The business employs around 600 people and generated revenues of approximately $63 million in 2021. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2023.

Axially space-saving, economical, IP65-compliant and designed for high radial and axial forces at the output: The Neugart WPLHE combines all the advantages of the successful PLHE, as a right-angle variant.

ABB opened its new global innovation and training campus at the headquarters of B&R in Eggelsberg, Austria, its global center for machine and factory automation. The new campus will create up to 1,000 additional high-tech jobs and includes world-class research and development laboratories, as well as global training facilities for up to 4,000 people per year in collaboration with universities. ABB invested EUR 100 million in the expansion of the B&R headquarters.