APPMA announces winners of 2011 Awards of Excellence

With just under 300 people in attendance, the Australian Packaging and Processing Machinery Association (APPMA) announced the winners of 2011 Awards of Excellence during AUSPACK PLUS in Melbourne.

According to Rob Lawrence, Chairman, APPMA, the focus of the awards is to be directed towards the business improvements, for example increase in sales or profit for the machinery supplier, or an efficiency increase. Awards categories include Export Achievement Award, Design Award, and the Imported Equipment Award, the Customer Partnership Award and the APPMA Scholarship.

The Export Achievement Award recipient has made a worthwhile contribution to an existing or new export market. The 2011 Export Achievement Award was presented to Accuweigh/BudPak for the PLA-G series of net weighers. Jason Ferguson, General Manager Accuweigh/BudPak said that the PLA-G series net weighers are designed for high-speed, high-accuracy weighing of free-flowing products (such as refined sugar) in capacities from 500 up to 3000 g.

The 2011 Design Achievement Award was presented to Matthews Australasia for iDSnet, which goes well beyond the compliance requirements of print and application of labels and date coding, and provides a solution to a growing problem for manufacturers for Package Code Management.

The Imported Equipment Award is designed to recognise the efforts of a company that promotes its overseas principal’s equipment in the Australian market, where the equipment in itself represents a high standard of excellence in every respect relevant to the industry consistent with the standard applied. The 2011 Imported Equipment Award was presented to insignia for the Domino M-Series label applicator.

The insignia entry stood out for its ability, using the Domino M-series label applicator, to print and apply labels to cartons at high speed. This ability allows the technology to be used by the high-volume, high-speed manufacturers where potential cost savings are high.

The Customer Partnership Award has a major emphasis on the customisation of packaging and processing machinery which is required to suit a customer’s individual needs. The 2011 Customer Partnership Award was presented to Fibre King for the development of the Laminator/Tray Erector in partnership with Amcor.

The 2011 APPMA Scholarship winner is Jude Van Der Zalm, Product and Packaging Commercialisation Manager, National Foods Morwell. The APPMA Scholarship enables one person each year to study an Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP) internationally accredited packaging course.