Jay Leno To Perform at PACK EXPO Intl. 2014
- Published: March 26, 2014, By Claudia Hine
ROSEMONT, IL | During a PACK EXPO press event held March 18, PMMI, The Assn. for Packaging and Processing Technologies, presented updates on upcoming shows—including an announcement that Jay Leno will do an hour of standup comedy for the PACK EXPO Lecture Series on November 3.
Attendees at the press event also were introduced to a group of experts that discussed the ways the industry can tackle the hurdles associated with workforce development for manufacturing, beginning as early as elementary school.
Jim Pittas, VP, trade shows, reported a joint effort with the Food Marketing Inst. (FMI) that will bring a Possibilities in Packaging Pavilion to FMI Connect 2014, which takes place June 10-13 at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL. The PMMI-PACK EXPO special exhibit will showcase packaging solutions for the future of food retail.
Pittas also reports there will be a new package printing pavilion at EXPO PACK Guadalajara, which will be held March 10-12, 2015, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. This is a new show date necessary to accommodate growth.
Also changing dates is PACK EXPO EAST, which will be held February 16-18, 2015, in Philadelphia, PA. With 245 exhibitors and 71,500 sq ft sold to date, the move was needed to get more space.
As for PACK EXPO Intl. 2014, Pittas says he expects 2,000 exhibitors and 50,000 attendees for the November 2-5 show at McCormick Place. All four pavilions—The Brand Zone, The Confectionery Pavilion, The Processing Zone, and The Reusable Packaging Pavilion—are sold out.
PMMI has a joint venture with the Intl. Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE), which produces Pharma EXPO. Nancy Berg, president and CEO of ISPE, was on hand for the press event. Attendees at PACK EXPO can visit Pharma EXPO for no additional cost, and Berg said Pharma EXPO will offer the attendees the opportunity to attend a full range of education sessions and networking with industry professionals.
Maria Ferrante, PMMI’s senior director of training and development, introduced a panel that included Brian Ormanic, ARPAC; Matt Jones, Dorner Mfg. Corp.; Mike Brancato, KHS USA, and Jacob Ertel, a senior at Arrowhead High School. They provided insights on the JumPPstart project, a PMMI initiative that provides opportunities for equipment and supplier member companies to network with students in their local areas.
A second panel on the agenda included Steve Schlegel, co-managing director of The Alliance for Innovation and Operational Excellence (AIOE), and Barry Lynch, global industry manager with GE Intelligent Platforms. They offered a demonstration of the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) Opportunity Calculator. AIOE created the tool to allow users to identify opportunities for improvement, develop project pipelines, and track progress. The calculator, based on Microsoft Excel, allows users to quickly and simply generate an estimate of potential savings on a production line as a result of OEE improvements. The tool is free to download at PMMI.org/alliance.
