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IMA E-COMMERCE: THE ROOTS OF A NEW PACKAGING ERA

The rapid evolving e-commerce industry requires e-tailers to be seamlessly effective in terms of efficiency, throughput, and automation. Thanks to its longstanding experience, IMA is the ideal partner to innovate the e-commerce automated packaging.

E-commerce has become a vital part of the retail industry and it is projected to continue its growth in the coming years.

Advanced packaging automation will be necessary to help e-tailers improve both throughput and their cost position as labor markets remain tight.
To compete on this fast-moving market, and thanks to its 60-years packaging expertise, IMA designed advanced technologies to automate the packaging process.

 

E-CO Flex: automated fit-to-size packaging solutions.

The E-CO Flex simplifies e-fullfilment packaging by selecting the best-fit box size for the product and connecting to the customer’s WMS system. It erects and tapes the bottom of the box, using traditional or water-activated tape, and adds any necessary identification stickers. The result is a pre-assembled container presented to the operator, who simply inserts the items to be shipped and secures them with the required amount of cushioning material. The operator reinserts the open-faced box back into the machine where the remaining void is measured: if necessary, the E-CO Flex will automatically reduce the height of the box and close it.

An innovative pack station that consolidates multiple stations into a single unit, improving productivity, efficiency, and profitability while also supporting green initiatives and reducing plant space needs compared to current multi-pack station setups.

Thanks to the partnership with Intertape Polymer Group, market leader for water-activated carton sealing tape, E-CO Flex features a Water-Activated Tape (WAT) head, which applies recyclable reinforced paper packaging tape used by top e-commerce retailers.

Traditional pressure-sensitive tape applied with handheld dispensers often requires multiple strips to secure a pack, often leading to material waste. With a touch of a button, IPG’s Water Activated Tape dispenser automatically feeds, moistens and cuts tape at the desired length. The case can be securely sealed with just one strip on the bottom and one strip of the top of the box.

IPG is exclusive distributor of the E-CO Flex in North America.

 

Pledging Sustainability

Balancing productivity, efficiency, and profitability with eco-friendliness is a challenge faced by packaging facilities. The solution to these challenges lies in automation, which can increase productivity and cost-effectiveness by creating boxes faster, with higher accuracy, and lower labor costs.

Automated right-sizing solutions like the E-CO Flex ensure a safe transition from weight-based pricing to dimensional (DIM) weight, reducing the cubic footage of cases to the minimum, significantly reducing material use and costs by using less corrugate and often eliminating the need for void fill.

The use of closing tape made of paper eliminates the need for plastic, in compliance with the latest Sustainability policies that IMA adopted. IMA ZERO is the Corporate program dedicated to sustainable development, and NOP is one of its declinations that endorses its commitment to minimizing plastic use in packaging processes.

Take full advantage of Digital power

E-CO Flex can be enriched with IMA’s Digital solutions, that integrate platforms and tools to enhance and support manufacturing activities.

VIRTUAL COMMISSIONING

One of the emerging needs within modern industrial markets is using systems design methods that guarantee time saving and cost saving. On this purpose, virtual commissioning is starting to be one of the most versatile ways to obtain highly functional industrial plants, becoming a valid ally in the realization of complex industrial systems

Virtual commissioning recreates a digital model (or digital twin) which, connected to the controller and sensors, allows the system to be digitally reproduced to bring out design errors and improvements to be implemented.

Thanks to this technology, problems and system bugs can be solved directly in the design phase, shortening production times and optimizing processes.

 

IMA DIGITAL TRAINING

To ensure that maintenance staff and operators can manage at best the installed base of E-CO Flex quickly, safely, and effectively it is necessary to properly train them following a planned scheme.

On this purpose, IMA has created a wide range of digital solutions. The proposals aim to divide education into phases, designed to anticipate training where it is impossible to involve equipment, and exploit advanced technology where training can be carried out directly on the systems.

IMA Digital Trainings can be carried out in three different modes:

  • IMA Digital Classroom
  • IMA E-Learning
  • IMA Training on the job

IMA develops and manufactures automatic machines for the processing and packaging of many markets. IMA E-Commerce designs and produces advanced packaging stations dedicated to on-line retail, offering innovative solutions to solve the complexities related to this fast-changing market.

Production facility:
IMA S.p.A. – E-COMMERCE Division
Via Emilia, 428-442
40064 Ozzano dell’Emilia (BO)
ima.it/e-commerce

Intertape Polymer Group Inc. develops, manufactures and sales a variety of paper and film based pressure-sensitive and water-activated tapes, stretch and shrink films, protective packaging, woven and non-woven products and packaging machinery for industrial and retail use.

Production facility:
Intertape Polymer Group Inc.
100 Paramount Drive – Suite 300
Sarasota, FL 34232
+1 800-972-4675
itape.com