Flexware Innovation’s Gabrielle Stewart, Nathan Scroggins, and Dwayne Butcher spent 3-days at Pack Expo, September 11-13, 2023. Stewart observed, “It’s clear that Food & Beverage executives rely on Pack Expo to help them find emerging solutions to improve processes.” 45,000 attendees navigated over 2,500 exhibitors, which included Flexware Innovation and sister-company, JR Automation at booth N-9163. Stewart added, “One of our customers in pet food manufacturing timed their annual managers meeting in conjunction with Pack Expo.”
The Flexware team discussed and demonstrated a variety of digital solutions that span from shop floor automation to ERP systems, including fast-track MES solution, SparkMES™, AGV/AMR integration, business intelligence solutions, HMI/SCADA, to ERP upgrades.
Scroggins captured the wide-ranging discussions this way, “We had conversations at every level of the ISA-95 model. Each manufacturer is on a different step in a digital transformation journey. It was great to see how Flexware’s solutions touch almost every stage of that journey.”
Both Stewart and Scroggins discussed the importance of Flexware’s partnerships in the industry. Many attendees asked how Flexware works with and integrates with partners like Rockwell Automation, Microsoft, Inductive Automation, AVEVA, PTC, Stratus, Parsec, Seeq, and Tulip, among many others. “It was clear by the questions asked that manufacturers understand the technology ecosystem,” Stewart added.
Scroggins added, “As we align with other Hitachi Group companies like JR Automation, our customers see advantages of a full systems integration solution from physical equipment to Flexware’s ability to integrate data between shop floor automation and top floor business systems.”
JR Automation’s booth not only featured Flexware Innovation’s digital solutions, but featured a robot dealing hands of blackjack. The robot was programmed to shuffle, deal cards, read cards with an on-board vision system, allow for player input (hit or stand), perform the logic of when the dealer should hit or stand, and finally, print a poker chip with the word “Winner!” for anyone who “beat the bot.”
Other Hitachi Group companies represented at Pack Expo included Hitachi Industrial Equipment & Solutions America, Hitachi Global Air Power, and Telesis.
Learn more about Flexware services for Food & Beverage manufacturers.
Learn more about JR Automation
Director of Marketing
I’m drawn to better and smarter ways of working and communicating. Many times that involves technology. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, work can and should be improved – continuously. I’m drawn to the mission of Flexware Innovation for these reasons. We’re committed to unleashing the potential of technology, freeing up leaders to focus on what’s next.
