A Parting Message to the Ashland Facility From Machelle Johnson   

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank our employees in the Ashland office for the past 4 years with Pearson Packaging Systems.  There are so many great memories that come to my mind as I say good-bye:

• Emily and I flying to Virginia for the first time to on-board our new team.
• Debbie and Zelda’s hospitality was that of welcoming and helpful in every step along the way.
• I was able to put faces to names on a spread sheet and begin to make a connection with so many of you.
• Hans inviting me to dinner after I just ate a full meal.  I wasn’t hungry but Hans insisted that I join the team for dinner, and we all know how hard it is to say “no” to Hans.
• Our Christmas dinner at Top Golf.  Emily had just moved to Virginia, and this was her event to host.  We had such a fun time, and I was lucky enough to share my first golf experience with the Virginia employees.
• Hiring so many great people over the past 4 years and learning about the different companies in the Richmond, Virginia area including some that we compete against.
• Spending time on the east coast in Richmond, VA was an educational experience.  I grew up on the west coast and took for granted the rich history that exists in Richmond.  Visiting the Capital, the Main Street Train Station, the James River and the Hollywood Cemetery will have a lasting impression on my life.
• Sandy hosting me for dinner at her beautiful home and Holly teaching me how to do the “wobble” dance moves.  Everyone who really knows me understands my passion for dancing, which included dancing in college.  Holly made me look like a beginner.  That girl has the moves!!

There are so many memories for me, but the one that will last with me forever is how hard all of you have worked up through the end of this transition.  There is so much uncertainty in your life, but you remain dedicated to helping us transition smoothly.  You have amazing leaders in Thomas, Phil and Neils and I thank each and everyone of you for proving that work ethic and commitment still exist in the post COVID-19 world.  I will miss you all and you have my sincerest appreciation for your hard work and efforts!

I will be on site the week of December 12^th to not only say goodbye to this chapter in our lives, but to ensure you have a path to a new beginning in 2023.

Thank you!

– Machelle Johnson, Human Resource Director

Special Dates in December

Eggnog Month

National Fruit Cake Month

National Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month

World AIDS Awareness Month

4th - National Cookie Day

5th - International Volunteer Day

7th - Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

9th - Christmas Card Day

10th - International Animal Rights Day

12th - National Poinsettia Day

13th - National Guard Birthday

14th - National Energy Conservation Day

16th - National Chocolate-Covered-Anything Day

18th - Hanukkah

21st - Winter Solstice (Shortest day of the year)

24th - Christmas Eve

25th - Christmas Day

28th - Pledge of Allegiance Day

31st - New Year's Eve

Employee Spotlight

Employee: Connor Roche 

Position: Mechanical Design Engineer 

Hello all,

My name is Connor Roche, and I have been with Pearson for just over two months now. I graduated from Eastern Washington University in March of 2021 with bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, specializing in thermal and fluid sciences. Following a couple months of job searching, I began working as a mechanical designer at Wagstaff Inc. in the special products group where I was primarily designing molten metal distribution troughs for the purpose of delivering molten aluminum to ingot casting tables. After a few months, I moved over to the billet design group where I worked in a small team designing billet casting tables. I continued my work in this role at Wagstaff up until finding employment with Pearson Packaging Systems. In considering my most significant takeaways from my time with Wagstaff, I find that my experience has impressed upon me the crucial importance of designing from the perspective of manufacturability and maintaining open communication across departments over the course of a project. As for these past two months I have been with Pearson, it has felt like quite a whirlwind of new information, but, thanks to the overwhelming support I have received from the rest of the engineering team, it has been an awesome experience so far!

Landing my first full-fledged engineering job here at Pearson was certainly one of the highlights of my year. However, I must confess it does take second place, as August 20^th of 2022 was definitively the happiest day of my life. That is the day I married my wonderful wife, Megan.

We had an amazing wedding followed by a tropical honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. In our free time, we enjoy volunteering in our local church, hiking, playing frisbee, and getting together with friends and family for game nights. With Megan and I starting out our new lives together as newlyweds and myself getting up to speed in my new engineering position, these last few months have been full of change, but I find myself all the more excited to see what adventures next year may hold.

                                                               Thank you for sharing, Connor!

Machine Builders Bridge the Skills Gap

By Stephanie Neil

The Anheuser-Busch facility in St. Louis serves as the hub of innovation for more than 30 brands—the most popular being Budweiser and Michelob Ultra.  At a facility like this, multiple lines run at high speed on the packaging floor.  As an example, one can line can package 1,950 12-ounce cans per minute and 1,650 16-ounce cans per minute.

With so much activity, operators have to be familiar with equipment and procedures.  Unfortunately, the beverage manufacturer is not only dealing with the skills shortage impacting the entire industry, but it is also preparing to lose about 40% of its workforce that is ready to retire.   That means novice operators will be running machines and learning to interpret HMIs (human-machine interaces) that have, in many instances, been in place for decades.

Concerned about what the future holds for the packaging floor with these workforce issues in mind, Ken VonderHaar, global director of the Anheuser-Busch Can Division, is asking OEMs to design machines that are much easier to learn and to use.

“Essentially, we're asking for simplicity,” he says.  “We would like for all of the complexity to be under the hood [of the machine], and we would like an operator interface that's very simple, easy to understand, and enables our younger employees to interface with some type of video screen.  We also look for set-up procedures that are built into the operator screen.  And we’d love it if [OEMs] could help train our operators.”

Lisa Rathburn, vice president of engineering at food manufacture T. Marzetti agrees that training and easy interfaces can help close the skills gap.  “We walk through the interfaces during design reviews to ensure that terminology matches what is used by our teams on the plant floor,” she says.  “We are focused on standardizing where possible to simplify the diversity of knowledge needed.  And we are also favoring changeover parts, rail adjustment, etc., that have clear indicators or push-button operations to reduce human error and manual adjustments.”

OEMs are listening to customers’ requests and delivering intuitive HMIs and visual learning components, as well as offering augmented reality (AR) and remote management and diagnostic technologies to offload most of the maintenance issues.

The goal is to avoid a big problem when there’s an easy fix.

“We can solve 90% of the issues remotely and within an hour,” says Robert Mize a technical support representative at Pearson Packaging Systems, a provider of end-of-line automated packaging systems.

Pearson’s remote service offering is free and available 24/7.  They use several technologies to connect with customers and help them get back up and running quickly.  One method employed uses PTC’s Vuforia AR technology, which allows the technician to make annotations on a shared screen.  It’s a simple process that starts by sending a code to a phone with the Vuforia app and pulling up the software to allow operators and technicians to share the same screen.  It does not require a remote connection to the machine and is especially useful when operators have language barriers or don’t know maintenance terminology.  “It’s one of the first things we mobilize.  We can see the machine and we can annotate in real time,” says Mize.

Another connection method uses an Ewon router that connects to the PLC via a secure VPN tunnel.  The router enables the technical support team to see the state of the machine, including PLC and sensor data, as well as make corrections to the code if necessary.  “Back in 2019, we made the decision that we were going to equip any plant or industrial network [our machines] are in with the ability to remote connect,” says Brian Patrick, Pearson’s vice president of engineering.  “It’s allowed us to make further investments, not only just putting remote connection on machines, but also being able to send things out quickly from a support standpoint.”

In certain cases, Pearson also provides cameras that can be set up around the machine so that when a remote session takes place, technical support can see what the customer is seeing.  This is especially helpful when a situation has to be assessed over a period of time.

Urgent calls
These types of services are proving to be vital given the current state of the workforce.  For example, during a routine customer service call to Pearson tech support, Mize answered questions about a machine while trying to gauge the operator’s familiarity with the technology.  That’s when he learned that the caller had actually been a cashier at the warehouse retail site just an hour before being reassigned to the machine operator role.

“Even the tone of the callers is totally different than it was a few years ago,” Mize says.  “There’s a sense of urgency.  It’s like they’ve been dropped off in the middle of the ocean and have to learn to swim for themselves.”

The urgency is heightened because every second counts.  “Our customers make money when they get boxes out the door,” says Paul Wolf, director of customer service at R.A.Jones, a supplier of primary and secondary packaging machinery.  “So how do you get a new hire to operate a line in a day?”  One solution, Wolf says, is a two-minute training video.

The company has identified several of the most common faults on its machines and are now scripting out short, documentary-like videos on how to fix them.  “A lot of documentation gets lost, but with a video of how to fix it, we can get an operator up to speed in record time,” Wolf says, noting they are also embedding videos in HMIs and online manuals, which can be customized to customer needs.

Other OEMs are aiding the untrained operator by developing somewhat self-sufficient machines.

At PACK EXPO International in October, BellatRx introduced a new labeling machine that includes a piece of equipment that takes the measurements of a bottle, which when entered into the HMI, automatically creates a recipe in which all of the conveyors, label dispensing, wrap, and metering wheel speeds are automatically set and synchronized without further operator intervention.  This gets the operator to 90% of where the set up needs to be just by measuring the bottle.  “They don’t need to understand dispense speed or any of that because we understand it, and we write in the code and algorithms to calculate the speeds,” explains BellatRx president and CEO Alan Shuhaibar.  “All you need to do is measure the bottle and enter the dimensions.”

A short animation or video also serves as a step-by-step guide in the HMI on how to get the BellatRx labeler up and running.  The video is coupled with an LED light strip installed along the length of the machine.  When setup is required on a certain assembly, the section of the LED strip in front of that assembly will light up to draw the operator’s attention to that point.  The mechanical adjustments include electronic feedback which turns the LED light green when it is in the correct setpoint or red when it is not. On the HMI, the operator cannot progress to the next screen unless all setpoints for that assembly are green.

In the past, the OEM’s expectation was that the operator knew how to set up the machines.  But that’s no longer true in many cases.  In addition, people expect the same user-friendly interface as an iPhone.  “We are trying to take that mindset and put it into the machines.  You shouldn’t need a PhD to run a labeler,” Shuhaibar says.

No coding experience? No problem
In its own factories, industrial control supplier Bosch Rexroth uses its ActiveAssist assistance system to guide operators through the assembly process.  It provides instructions projected on a workstation with a vision system that confirms when something is done correctly.

The company has also reinvented its automation approach over the last two years with its softwaredriven ctrlX Automation platform.  By going back to the drawing board in its development of this platform, the company erased the traditional boundaries between machine control systems, IT, and Internet of Things (IoT) to create a flexible and scalable platform based on the Linux real-time operating system, open standards, and comprehensive IoT connectivity with web-based engineering.

Using the Blockly visual programming language the platform provides a drag-and-drop function block that builds sequentially.  “So now, instead of memorizing dozens of lines of code, you just have to understand that this block means a kinematic move sequence. This makes it easy to use and to train someone to use,” explains Brad Klippstein, product manager for smart mechatronics at Bosch Rexroth.  “In under five minutes we can teach you how to use this interface and program your process.”

In addition, Bosch is helping OEMs and customers alike by providing them with its LinSelect online tool for designing and commissioning of machines.  “It allows you to input the parameters of whatever you are trying to do.”  If you are trying to move boxes from point A to point B, for example, just input the distance needs, weight of the box, and a few other details pertinent to the process.  “Our system sizes and selects the mechanical, electrical, and software components that fit together based on your application.”

Third-party control
Of course, the easiest thing for OEMs to do to help their customers is to fully manage the machines onsite.  However, the thought of allowing a third party to remotely control a machine is completely off-limits. Or is it?

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Given the current circumstances, it’s becoming acceptable to relinquish control to the experts.  “We always have a plan B with the remote connection of a machine,” says Pearson’s Patrick.  “We have the ability to take over the machine, so if an operator is not comfortable doing something, they can grant us access to use the HMI remotely.”

To be clear, this scenario requires specific conditions with the machine in a certain state for it to work, Patrick notes, emphasizing “there is no opportunity to put someone in danger.”

Taking even this small step in allowing restricted remote control of machines is a big deal for many end users, but it’s something they could ultimately be asking for in greater numbers.

“It's always a challenge with our IT team to [allow for] remote [access] into anything in the brewery,” says Anheuser-Busch’s VonderHaar.  “And that's just because of the risk.  But I think the trend is there, and we have to figure out how to do that.  And at the end of the day, yes, we want to do that.  We need to figure out how to do that safely and try to do it in a manner that doesn't put our operations at risk.”

10 Ways to Stay Safe as You Deck the Halls this Holiday Season 

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 Where in the World is Pearson?

Cottage Grove, Oregon

Pearson recently commissioned a robotic tray handling system for Oregon Seafood to automate their product handling process.  The Pearson robotic system loads pouches of seafood onto trays then loads the trays onto carts in preparation for transport to their retort cooking process.  After the seafood is cooked, the carts are returned to the robotic cell, where our equipment unloads the trays from the carts then unloads the pouches from the trays onto a conveyor for transport to their packaging operation.  Pearson also commissioned the packaging cell earlier this year, including a CE15 case erector, CS15 case sealer, and RPC-DF dual floor palletizer.

 Birthdays

Anniversaries

1 Year: Candice Baldwin, Nicole Chavez, Gerardo Medina, Brian Ormanic and Bailey Wangler
2 Years: Dionicio Silva and Anthony Tuttle                                                                                                            3 Years: Brian Patrick, Travis Stragier and Travis Viehouser
4 Years: Eric Simpson and Jessie Wickre
8 Years: Shawn Cheney and Karen Covelli
10 Years: John Gallinger
11 Years: Irlo Macabinguil
14 Years: Kurt Larson                                                                                                                                            15 Years: Jason McCall                                                                                                                                        17 Years: Doug Boozer                                                                                                                                          32 Years: Diane Long

New Babies

                                     Maria Sepulveda welcomed Izaiah William Wynns to the world on November 18th.

                                                                                                                                                      Spencer Croom added  Otto Wade Croom to his family on November 13th

                                                                  Welcome Baby Izaiah and Baby Otto!

New Employees

Shane Steffen - Product Manager

Mike Darvis - Customer Success Manager

Brook Payne - Inventory Specialist

Melissa Jett - Customer Success Manager

Ryan Bares - Applications Engineer

Cody Hurley - AP Specialist

Jaydee Bengfort - Parts Sales Representative

Karen Lynch - Parts Sales Representative 

Cody Steen - Assembly

                                                               Welcome to Pearson!

Brain Game

The first five people to solve this riddle will receive a $5.00 Starbucks gift card! Email your response to: zhutson@pearsonpkg.com 

What did Adam say the day before Christmas?

October Blog Brain Game Answer: What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, laser printers, circular saws, ice cream makers and disposable diapers all have in common?         

Answer:  They were all invented by women

Winners:  Kellee Prchal, Ashley Soennichsen, Jared O'Hara and Tristan Erdman

Did You Know?  "Jingle Bells" was originally a Thanksgiving song?  Turns out, we first started dashing through the snow for an entirely different holiday.  James Lord Pierpont wrote the song, "One Horse Open Sleigh", for his church's Thanksgiving concert in the mid-19th century.  Then in 1857, the song was re-released under the title "Jingle Bells" we all know and love.  Today, it's still among the most popular Christmas songs.

Quote Of The Month

"The principal advantage of the non-parental lifestyle is that on Christmas Eve you need not be struck dumb by the three more terrifying words that the government allows to be printed on any product: "Some assembly required."

- John Leo

Learn A New Word

Crepuscular - "Of, relating to, or resembling twilight."  It is also used in zoological contents to describe creatures that are active during twilight, or to the activities of such creatures.

Recipe                     

                                                Christmas Tree Cheese Board   

Enjoy! If you decide to make this delicious recipe, make sure to snap a photo and email it to sloft@pearsonpkg.com to be featured in next month's blog.

I want to take this moment to say my "Goodbye" and say how much I have enjoyed working on the blog for your enjoyment (or not), and to inform you of the Company happenings.  It's been fun!  I have really enjoyed my job.  Even though our time working together is coming to a close, I want to wish you all, all the best moving forward.  On to my next chapter!   

Best Regards,

Zelda