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OMAC’s evolution punctuated by small revolutions

On OMAC’s 25th year, notably coinciding with Packaging World’s 25th year, we speak to its key pioneers and current stewards to chronicle its history and future.

OMAC - the Organization for Machine Automation and Control
OMAC - the Organization for Machine Automation and Control

The cast of characters
Interviewed were players throughout much of the organization’s history, listing here who they were with during OMAC’s inception, and where they are now.

Andy McDonald, Unilever Keith Campbell, then of Hershey’s, adorns an inside front cover of Packaging World from the June 1998 issue.Keith Campbell, then of Hershey’s, adorns an inside front cover of Packaging World from the June 1998 issue.

Bryan Griffen, formerly Nestlé, currently PMMI

Dave Newcorn, Packaging World, now part of PMMI Media Group

Jack Aguero, formerly ProMach, currently Aguero Associates

Jerry Yen, formerly GM, currently Zoox

John Kowal, formerly ELAU, currently B&R

Keith Campbell, formerly Hershey’s, currently Campbell Management Services

Pat Reynolds, Packaging World, now part of PMMI Media Group

Rob Aleksa, formerly P&G, currently retired

OMAC is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and according to approximations listed in the recollections that follow, its 20th year in the packaging space. With that in mind, Packaging World spoke to some of the pioneers who were on the front lines from the beginning, shepherding the industry toward OMAC’s Packaging Work Group and PackML. The road toward adoption hasn’t always been easy, and some grey areas naturally persist, but the general trend seems to be toward greater participation according to OMAC officials and PackML adherents. What follows is a series of recollections—25 years’ worth, so forgive any minor inaccuracies—that chronicle the shifting tides of the packaging industry’s attitude toward OMAC.

PW: Describe OMAC’s automotive and aerospace genesis.

Kowal: The significance of the original OMAC lay in its signature white paper of November 1994. The original signers—General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford Powertrain groups [among them]—were decidedly metal-cutting guys and they lived in a world where 80% market share was dominated by just two suppliers of CNC controls. The white paper called for the opposite of proprietary and monolithic CNC or computer numerical controls, in favor of less expensive ones that were flexible and scalable.

PW: How did CPG packagers come to find OMAC?

Campbell: During Interpack 1996, Hershey’s Director of Engineering, Bob Woelfling, spoke at the U.S. press conference and issued a call of challenge and change to the packaging machinery industry. Among his remarks were thoughts about motion control, skills training, technology standards, object-oriented programming and similar ideas. … The vast majority of U.S. machine manufacturers were entrenched in a mechanical paradigm [vs. the electromechanical/servo new kid on the block] and were not employing these new technologies, a mistake that we believed would leave them at a competitive disadvantage in the future. We did not want U.S. OEMs to be disadvantaged relative to their European competitors. … The surprise was how these remarks were not understood or properly reported upon by the U.S. packaging press. … Stepping outside of its normal quiet conservative comfort zone, Hershey began working in conjunction with Indramat to publicize its use of the motion architecture with Packaging World magazine and other media partners. Hershey articles appeared as the cover article of Packaging World Controls Strategies in June 1998, had a feature article on SCADA in Packaging World in December of 1998, as well as other mentions by Dave Newcorn, and subsequently Pat Reynolds.

Reynolds: CPG companies began to realize how much time, effort, and money was being spent on integrators whose responsibility it was to make disparate packaging machines “talk” to each other. People started thinking it would be nice to have a cohesive and united organization like OMAC that could lobby for the adoption of standards that might lessen the need for integrators.

McDonald: I got involved with OMAC because of some work we were doing at Unilever about how to solve this perennial problem that we have every time we put a packing line together. We buy the best-of-breed packaging machinery from the best manufacturers—the best capper, the best lidder, the best filler, the best cartoner—and we’re buying from different companies all over the world. And what it meant was that we’d spend a huge amount of time and effort in engineering the interfaces between the different machines.

PW: A case had to be made for industry adoption, how did that process go?

Yen: If I remember correctly, and it has been a while, I believe the changes were driven by P&G, and [also] the PackML efforts. OMAC in the late ’90s wanted to expand into other industries in addition to automotive and aerospace. The PackML group, including Keith Campbell from Hershey and subsequently Rob Aleksa from P&G, decided to lead the PackML group to join the OMAC Users Group, and the OMAC focus was also to broaden beyond just Open Modular Architecture Controller [original acronym], and become the [current] Organization for Machine Automation and Control, which is much broader than just focusing on having openness for controller architecture, but covers the open, interoperable automation systems and standards.

Kowal: At the ARC Forum 1999, a P&G conference attendee asked OMAC co-chair Jerry Yen, “What’s in it for us, the CPGs? We don’t have CNCs.” Ah, but PLCs were rife with proprietary languages and libraries and techniques, and all it took was a straw poll of CPGs after that comment to determine that, indeed, the non-CNC world of discrete automation was ready for OMAC.

Campbell: Packaging World, ARC, and Indramat proposed to sponsor a meeting at PACK EXPO in Las Vegas. This meeting was held on October 19, 1999 and consisted of a panel of engineering managers from Hershey, Anheuser-Busch, General Mills, Nabisco, and Procter & Gamble presenting to an audience of over 100 individuals representing other consumer goods companies, 19 packaging machine OEMs, and 28 controls suppliers.

Kowal: It took two Packaging World insiders to set the stage for a great debate. Jim Chrzan laid the commercial groundwork and Dave Newcorn set the editorial stage, literally, at the Sands Hotel across from the PACK EXPO West show floor, for about a dozen end users armed with similar PowerPoint slides and another 80 or so members of the machine builder, user, and automation technology provider community waiting to hear what they had to say.

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