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In order to grow, companies need to develop new products and find solutions to existing needs or problems. However, innovation is often not easy. Inventing new products and systems requires focus, planning, discipline, resources, and talent.

Often, one of the biggest obstacles is deciding whether the innovation is going in a whole new direction or enhancing the current product and process portfolio. When we try to focus on our challenges, obstacles, and shortcomings, major innovations often occur. As the proverb goes, "Necessity is the mother of invention." 

However, this process requires a lot of brainstorming and planning. Gathering information from key stakeholders and "on-site" personnel experiencing these problems is crucial. It is necessary to have a good understanding of the problem, and it is prudent to formulate multiple possible solutions, because things usually do not go as expected.

Often, the problem may be related to quality, such as achieving consistency in reducing waste to meet performance specifications.

With increasing emphasis on the use of post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials, new learning must be made on how to handle and test these materials in order to meet performance specifications. The learning in these cases is not necessarily a natural extension of how the virgin resin was previously manufactured, processed, or tested. A typical example might be dry recycled PET (rPET) resin and flakes. Does it require the same temperature, airflow and residence time?

What will happen if the quality of the feedstock keeps changing as usual? Is there a way to close-loop feedback system to intelligently modify all relevant parameters based on some key inputs? The answers to these questions may drive the design of new feeding and conveying systems as well as new screw designs and monitoring systems.

For bottle blowing, we have developed a system that can track the thickness, color, holes, and other defects of newly blown containers. However, we have not seen the emergence of such a system in which the color, odor, black specification or online intrinsic viscosity of particles or preforms are monitored, and the drying or molding parameters are modified based on a closed-loop feedback system. These solutions are not limited to PET packaging. They are suitable for all departments that need to increase the use of PCR. These innovations may also lead to changes in secondary and tertiary packaging and distribution systems.

All in all, in the next few years, the industry may be excited by many recent innovations that can save costs and improve performance efficiency.

Author: Sumit Mukherjee is the Chief Technology Officer of PTI. He has 25 years of experience in packaging design, material characterization, process simulation and modeling, and finite element analysis (FEA) for packaging performance prediction.

PTI is globally recognized as the preferred source of prefabricated parts and packaging design, packaging development, rapid prototyping, pre-production prototyping and material evaluation engineering for the plastic packaging industry. For more information, please visit: www.pti-usa.com.

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