automatic cartoning machines are applied on a large scale in the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetics and other industries, and the size of the market will be 4.2 billion US dollars in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.8% (IMARC data). In pharmacy, the Bosch Sigpack TLM 2200 machine model of Pfizer is used to pack 300 pill boxes of medication within an hour with ±0.1 mm tolerance, 40% improved packaging speed, and 65% less labor cost, but in compliance with FDA 21 CFR Part 11 electronic records specification. Ensure batch traceability error rate ≤0.01%.
In the tea bag packing sector of food industry, Unilever uses Syntegon HSU 350 model with a single rate of 200 boxes/minute, which adjusts to the size range of the box from 50×30×10 mm up to 200×150×80 mm, and production changeover time is only 15 minutes. In 2022, Mars replaced the vision detection module of the automatic cartoning machine (99.99% accuracy) to reduce the misloading of chocolate bars from 0.3% to 0.02%, reducing waste by 12 tons per year and saving $1.8 million.
Extremely flexible equipment is reliant on the cosmetics market. L’Oreal uses the IMA C24 model, which can pack lipstick (15-30 g weight) and powder (70×70×20 mm size) in a single process and trap fragile products with a breakage of <0.05% by vacuum suction cups. In 2023, Este Lauder introduced AI-controlled automatic cartoning machine to real-time adjust the carton crease pressure (50-200 N), adapt to different gram weight products (5-500 g), the packaging pass rate increased to 99.7%, and the equipment investment return cycle was shortened to 18 months.
The electronics and daily chemicals industries also benefit. Japan Panasonic AA battery packaging line configuration of the side push box (speed 120 boxes/min), carton compressive strength ≥300 N, humidity tolerance range of 30-80%RH. By 2021, due to the adoption of Glatt CNS 100 model by P&G, the productivity of the laundry bead line will be increased by 25%, the annual maintenance cost of a single device is only $12,000, and the MTBF will be over 8,000 hours. According to “Packaging Technology Frontier” statistics, the penetration of daily chemical packaging machine in the industry is 78%, while labor costs for traditional semi-automatic lines are as high as 30%.
Expanding application fields in emerging markets. In 2023, medical consumables company BD (Bidi Medical) uses automatic cartoning machine to package COVID-19 test kits, and ensures sealing strength ≥ 15N /15mm using hot melt adhesive sealing technology (set temperature at 120±5°C), with the capacity of producing more than 500,000 boxes per day. Indigo Ag, an agritech company, has come up with water-proof models that can stabilize seed bags’ packaging in a humid environment ≥90%, and the firm regulates paper box moisture level to ≤5%, allowing its revenue to expand by 34% in 2022. Roland Berger is estimating that up to 2027, novel energy battery module packages will drive another $900 million in automatic cartoning machines market with 12% compound growth annually.