What Does Your Copack Operation Have In Common With A Disney Movie?

I’ve learned that it pays to be friends with the maintenance department.. 

My phone’s contact list has as many maintenance people in it as operations managers. That’s from lessons learned - in contract packaging and manufacturing.

Why? 

They know stuff.

They will find answers.

They get things fixed.

They also know equipment. What works well as well as what are the dogs. And that was the reason I was reconnecting with Isaac. I wanted to talk about robots in co-pack. (Not his real name. He’d say “You CAN use my real name. The bosses know I’m a straight shooter.” And he is. But I can’t help feeling that I need to make sure when we finish talking, he’s still in the best standing and gave me an unfiltered “voice from the production lines”. 

With labor shortages and the price of robot arms aligning favorably, plus some suppliers making the cost of an arm the same per month as a worker takes home in paychecks (through a Robot-as-a-Service RaaS model), I figured that Isaac would have some experience. Me getting unfiltered and straight shooter style instead of just points from a website’s sales pitch.

All operations in contract packaging (or manufacturing) have “boneyards”. You may have seen pictures during the pandemic when airlines lost more than half their business, they stored 737s in a boneyard in a desert (that here in 2023 you are probably now flying in again). Why? It’s surplus to be reused or recycled or scrapped. In every co-pack operation I’ve visited there are boneyards, holding areas, surplus equipment areas or other named parking places. Some small, some big. Given the high mix and constant changeover needed in secondary packaging these are essential. A cartoner might not be needed on Line #6 today, but the weekly schedule says it needs to be set up by the second shift Friday.

The place can also be the equivalent of a junk drawer. Think of it as “MacGyver is alive and well - he’s just wearing a maintenance shirt”. Some pieces are there to be taken apart and their components go on to help with some process improvements. A bigger motor on that conveyor will pull the weight of a belt struggling under twenty cases of detergent. Kind of an “organ donor” scenario. And Isaac and his creative team have done their share of transplants.

It's also where bad ideas go to die. Picture it as the opposite end of the spectrum as a PackExpo – where the latest greatest newest ideas in equipment are there for people to see and envision on their production floors. All are good --- the trick is figuring out are they good for YOU?  A new Tesla model 3 is pretty good technology…but if you are the one taking three kids and their three friends to soccer practice twice a week, you’re going to need a third row vehicle to be “good for you”.) A new piece of equipment that doesn’t cut it on the co-pack floor will find itself parked back in the boneyard.

There you can find “do not touch” investments made by well-intended engineers or under informed decision makers. Accounting says to depreciate it for five years but you discover in year one it was a bad choice…with a price tag in the many thousands and at annual asset list review time you’ll need to answer: “What’s it going to take to get rid of?” (Well, you’d have to find a buyer. A buyer in the used equipment market, and one that is in your type of business, that happens to be looking and happens to have an approved budget and will probably offer half or less of your remaining book value. Then you have to convince the accountants that it’s OK to take a loss. (spoiler alert – it won’t be OK). Then somebody starts talking about who made this decision. It's not the latest mystery on Netflix but can turn into the co-pack version of “Knives Out”.

Which is what I was asking Isaac about.

The innovators leading successful contract packaging companies have already started using robot arms on their lines or are one budget away from doing so. They get it. The labor shortage isn’t going away. Workers have better choices now and they are making them. Repetitive jobs like placing products destined for a large retailer’s shelves onto conveyors to be shrink wrapped into “buy one get one free” packs for forty plus hours a week are going unfilled as wage battles get fought at distribution centers clustered around every other interstate cloverleaf in the US. There will be no influx of new or future citizens (and line workers) to surge and cover any unemployment deficits. 

Isaac knows that. He’s short by two maintenance techs to cover two shifts (three at peak season every Fall). That means constant juggling to keep what lines that are staffed running. Running and making money.

Copack executives are finding it an interesting “IF-THEN” exercise. IF I don’t automate to close these gaps THEN I need to accept that my lines will be understaffed. IF they are understaffed THEN I need to slow them down. IF I slow them down THEN I miss deliveries or miss my profit targets for that SKU. IF I miss deliveries THEN customers will play the “next co-packer up” game and my revenue drops. IF I lose customers or profit THEN… Well, that’s usually when reality or good logic show that investing in technology like robot arms is the best approach today. 

Back to the front lines – and Isaac. He wants to know what’s on my mind (and I know that he is multi-tasking as we speak. Paying attention but also eyeing the floor and spotting an unexpected red Andon light telling him he might be getting paged if it doesn’t flip to green in the next couple of minutes).

“Robots.” I say. And so I ask him, “Has your boneyard added any robots in the last year or two?”.

I heard the chuckle before he said. “Luckily, no. But we came this close”. 

“Really? What happened?”.

And then it was my turn to smile as I listened to a story I’ve heard too many times in the last few years from co-pack operations. Short version goes like this: Getting a robot WAS the right decision. But the choice of who to work with was not. All robot arms look great on the website video or in the convention center hall. The aisleway math done at the show booth made sense. Their co-pack operation could make X$’s more if missing positions were filled, they could run extra shifts, save OT etc. Enough to hit the payback period and ROI to keep financial folks happy. But what many find out (too late – after installing and running under longer real world conditions) is that the CHANGEOVER costs can kill all the positives about the new technology over on Line #3.  Face it. Most co-packers are lucky to have a minority of lines running all but the same product night and day. Little or no changeovers (or once a month). The other lines? That’s life in co-pack: production runs that last under a full shift. A stream of SKUs next up. All short run high mix. As Isaac explained “Not the kind of work that can just sit and wait.”

“Wait for what?” I asked.

“Me. Or my team. If the robot needs a techie like me or even an engineer then it’s going to wait till we’re available. And then wait some more. Many don’t tell you it may stretch to hours for that to happen and then the time for us to program in all the parameters, test it out, rinse repeat.”

“So, you passed on the robot arm?”.

“Yep. For now.”

My turn to smile again. “Isaac, that is more common out there than you would think. But there is one company I’ve run across that has delivered on making changeover in a matter of minutes not hours. And often with floor leads using the tablet, not you or your team of techies”.

We spent a few minutes talking about Southie Autonomy. Their system is tailored for contract packaging floors and runs on any brand of robot arm – your choice or have them recommend. And the integrated camera that sees product coming to it – no need to add in more hidden costs for complicated fixtures and chutes to get it exactly in one spot and only one spot for the robot to grab. 

Isaac said thanks. I knew he was thinking about that red Andon light. I also knew he’d be looking up Southie on his lunch break, no doubt. The good thing is his company really does respect him and his people. And if it says it’s a good thing to consider, then it is.

“Oh, one more thing.”, Isaac said.

“Back to your first question. Yes, we did add to the boneyard. We added a Bruno”.

I thought hard. “Bruno? Bruno?…”. I know most equipment companies out there in co-pack. But new ones emerge every day. I drew a blank and asked him to tell me about “Bruno” and why their technology ended up parked in his boneyard.

“It’s not actually a company. Bruno is just what we call it.” And paused. For effect.

“We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no!” (That song. It immediately came back to me. If you don’t have a young person in your life who has sung it a hundred times from the back seat on a road trip, look it up. It’s from the Disney movie “Encanto”. Catchy but kids have been known to sing that line over and over until the adult in the room or SUV distracts, bribes, does whatever it takes to stop it.)

Before I could ask he continued. “Yeah we don’t talk about Bruno. On once a year executive visits there’s a tarp over it. Like a few others, it's best to just not talk about the money spent on a piece that just didn’t work out.  Makes things uncomfortable. Hey. I gotta go”.

And that’s what you are left with as you look at your co-pack operation. You will be considering robots. I’ll take that bet. Copack is made for using these to supplement their workforce. The forward thinkers are testing or installing now and many more to follow. 

Just be sure to include a call to Southie if you do look into robot arms for your packaging or even manufacturing lines.

You don’t want to buy any Bruno’s.

John has spent over thirty years learning in global manufacturing, automation, engineering, 3PLs and contract packaging. Currently still learning and sharing best practices in those fields and as an advisor to Southie Autonomy out of Boston MA.

You can learn more at info@southie.com.