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50 Years Of Interpack：1980~1989
As a reaction to problems such as state debt and mass unemployment, ever more industrial nations are wavering towards a supply-orientated economic policy. Less state, more individual responsibility is the creed. The importance of financial capital grows. The shareholder value is focused upon.
In Silicon Valley, the foundations are laid for the transformation of the industrial society into the information society. At the beginning of the 80s, the operating system MS-DOS is presented, and the graphic user interface is launched later in the decade by Apple among others. There is renewed optimism. Although mass unemployment remains a social reality, private consumption is a substantial engine driving economic growth. Households equip themselves with additional electrical appliances, from answering machines to microwaves and video recorders. The yuppies seem to stand on the sunny side of the success, showing off their success with as many status symbols as possible. The trend towards more inwardness shows itself in New Age movements and esotericism.
The theme of luxury and opulence plays a major role in consumption. Brand items are not only consumed in tacit awareness of their quality, but used as a means to project an image. The fitness wave comes from the USA, and millions do aerobics with Jane Fonda. The “no” and “low” products appear in American supermarkets: low-cal, low-salt, sugar free, no cholesterol etc. The counterpart to the luxury is the trend towards discounters, which achieve strong rates of growth in this period. The concept of no-name products (generic products) is supplemented and/or replaced by the successful trading brands.
The trend towards supermarkets with ever larger surface areas first comes to a standstill. New ranges of services are offered in an attempt to be distinguished from the competition, because consumer loyalty to markets and brands is waning – retailing is searching for an answer to the trend towards discounters. As well as the change in the sales approach, internal procedures are also being put to the test. In Germany, for example, greater standardization is called for in the returnable item systems for beverages. The scanner tills and barcodes, which are now becoming more prevalent in retailing, are a radical change in goods management. In 1981, it is reported in the trade press that 10,000 of these scanners have been set up in US supermarkets.
In this decade too, the interpack remained a trade fair of superlatives. In 1987 the global importance of the interpack was highlighted in a special way. It became the first investment goods fair in the world to have a proportion of foreign visitors of over 50 %. With this, the interpack beat all other investment goods fairs. To promote orientation towards target groups, producers of packaging materials machines were from 1981 on assigned to other fairs. The interpack was now offering a well-rounded range of exhibitions, covering filling, packaging and final packaging systems as well as packaging and packaging means made of all kinds of packaging materials. In view of their shared history, confectionery machines were still admitted as exhibits. Right in time for the interpack 1984, another new hall was built for the Düsseldorf trade fair grounds. In 1987 the interpack bade farewell to its long-serving President, Otto Hänsel, who handed over his post to the former Vice President Werner Reinhard.
The desire for luxury and opulence ensures that a traditional packaging form becomes a fashionable product: Elaborately constructed and finely finished folding boxes. Films with improved barrier characteristics make possible new presentation forms for fresh foods. Plastics that can be exposed to major temperature differences within seconds are the precondition of deep-frozen ready meals, which can be placed in the microwave together with the packaging.
The manufacturers are looking for new ways to offer the consumers more safety through the design of the packaging. This is partly also actively required by the legislator. Manufacturer’s liability is strengthened in many countries. The processes in manufacturing medicines are more strictly regulated. In the FRG, a regulation is introduced for making packaging child-proof.
The further development of blow moulding technology makes the production of PET bottles cheaper and improves their properties regarding permeability and surface finish. In 1986 Continental CAN (the USA) and Coca-Cola come up with an innovation: They present the world’s first refillable PET bottle for carbonated beverages.
For the packaging of foods, companies increasingly use aseptic packaging in cardboard compound, as well as processing into deep-frozen goods or filling in tins. Retailing expands its range of these products constantly.
In the 50s, when a machine replaced manual work in some process stages, it was said that the procedure had been automated. Now, in the 80s, this keyword receives a wholly new dimension. “Automatic“ means literally “without human intervention“, and the now-available computing power of microprocessor technology helps to achieve it. For some, the idea of the factory without people is a spectre, and for others it is a distant aim.
Freely programmable control, servomotors and improved sensor technology are available to the designers. If a computer programme guides the movement, new motion sequences are achieved by entering coefficients. This reduces the standstill times for format adjustments by up to 80 %. Because any point within a coordinate system can be moved to with servo control, less machinery is required for the transmission of movement. Servomotors make it possible to have machines with finely coordinated movements. This is used in tubular bag machines among others, to increase the accuracy of production and filling of packages.
Gerhard Schubert (Gerhard Schubert Verpackungsmaschinen, Germany) is the first to bring a packaging robot to the market-ready stage. In order to demonstrate the potential possessed by this technology, he has a robot play a game of “draughts” at the interpack 1981. The visual recognition system shown at the interpack 1987 is a necessary addition to his approach of reducing machinery and shifting the functions to the software.
New software fundamentally changes the field of graphic design and the pre-press stage. For logistics, there are the first programmes that help one to guide the flow of goods. The “just in time“ concept, which Toyota has already been employing since the 50s, becomes the standard for the whole industry at the beginning of the 80s. Trading logistics uses the EAN barcode, and here too the latest level of computer technology is required.
For the foods and pharmaceutical industry, the importance of the computer lies in the improved checking, regulation and documentation of processes. According to the pattern of target value/deviation from target, errors are recorded, displayed on a screen and saved as a protocol. There are also better processes for labelling. Instead of using printer types and printing plates, needle and inkjet printers are used. Lasers for coding are still too expensive to find broad use.
For applications in which a high degree of flexibility is not necessary, producers perfect the mechanical functions of their machines with tried-and-tested control and drive concepts. Regardless of which approach is chosen, all machines need to be able to offer higher productivity in smaller areas at lower cost. Because breakdowns can cause a fatal chain-reaction in “just in time“ delivery, the reliability of technology becomes even more important than before.
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