Economical Comparison of Packaging Machines: A New Approach Based on an Economic Evaluation Model

Abstract

There is a large demand to increase the material and energy efficiency as well as the format-flexibility of packaging machines due to current market changes, e.g. the increased demand for individualized products and the resulting drop down of batch sizes. These machines are mostly customized products to fulfil the special requirements of the various packaging machine users. Thus, it is important to know the most profitable level of material and energy efficiency as well as format-flexibility for these machines at the beginning of the development phase. The focus of this paper is the introduction of a new model for the economical assessment of format-flexible packaging machines. It is targeted towards machine manufactures during the early stages of development as well as potential machine users in the investment decision process. Further, the model is applicable to consider further capability characteristics of different packaging machines. The introduced model combines the net present value method and the overall equipment effectiveness system. The application of the economic evaluation model will be shown by a practical use case.