The Whole Package

Get a glimpse into the expertise and hurdles faced by Dennis Group’s talented packaging engineering team. And let us debunk one widely held misconception… (hint, it’s not all about the vendor).

The adage, “don’t judge a book by its cover” doesn’t apply to food packaging, since consumers often form opinions of a product within 90 seconds, solely based on its packaging. Beyond visual appeal, food packaging needs to protect the product integrity, satisfy regulatory requirements, and embrace trends like convenience or sustainability. Evolving consumer preferences influence packaging materials and formats, necessitating that packaging engineers adapt production lines to seamlessly incorporate these shifts.

We spoke with the packaging department lead, Rod Walker, as well as three senior packaging engineers: Liz Cangelosi, Matt Sargent, and Adam Rosenberg to get some insights into the Dennis Group team responsible for the downstream handling of products from filling to packaging to material handling.

Different Career Paths Lead to DG

Our packaging team has diverse backgrounds, but common college majors include mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, or packaging science. “My love of cycling and road bikes initially led me to explore mechanical engineering as a logical major,” noted Adam Rosenberg. “But then I attended an engineering orientation at the Rochester Institute of Technology. At the end of the presentation the speaker yelled ‘don’t forget about packaging.’ RIT was one of only a handful of schools offering a packaging degree that was more engineering-based, which I found fascinating.”

Like Adam, Liz Cangelosi also joined Dennis Group immediately after college. “I was a mechanical engineering major, and getting a job in manufacturing appealed to me since I liked the idea of working with individual components to develop a [production] system,” Liz shared. “I always liked watching the How It’s Made videos, especially of food products, so when I saw Dennis Group at a career fair, I wanted to learn more about what they did. I thought I would get bored being a plant engineer, so Dennis Group’s project-based work was exciting.”

Matt Sargent, a mechanical engineer by trade, started working with packaging equipment vendors before the desire to travel brought him to E²M, an engineering firm specializing in controls and packaging. He joined Dennis Group 11 years ago when a large group of employees migrated to DG after E²M sale to Haskell. Rod Walker earned a degree in aerospace engineering with the goal of becoming a pilot in the armed forces, but when less than perfect vision derailed his plan, he joined the United States Navy serving on a submarine. Managing projects for the submarine fleet led Rod to seek out a role that would expose him to a wide variety of engineering projects. He transitioned out of the military after accepting a job at E²M, which is where he first learned about packaging engineering

Essential Skills for Packaging Excellence

Packaging systems integrate with many other disciplines, so having good communication skills is critical. Open mindedness and attentive listening can help bridge the gaps between clients, vendors, and the project team. “A good [packaging engineer] ensures the system operates as intended,” Adam told us, “while a great one optimizes installation to prevent issues and streamline the work for the entire engineering team.”

“We try to fully understand our client’s scope in the early design phase of the project,” noted Rod. “While we’re not designing the machines in a packaging system, we need the expertise to identify the best solutions for the project and write a detailed specification. Understanding the constraints of each piece of equipment is equally important.” As a project gets more defined, the packaging team continues to refine and communicate the needs to vendors and other engineering groups.

Our packaging engineers pay great attention to detail because there is little margin for error. “It’s easy to assume getting to point A to B via conveyor should be simple, but deviations as small as a quarter of an inch can reorient or flip cases,” observed Rod. “There are always going to be things you can’t predict when you go on site,” Liz agreed. “Attention to detail and thorough documentation can avoid a lot of headaches in the field.”

Interesting Projects, Amazing Colleagues

A diverse array of project work keeps the packaging team engaged, but it’s clearly the talented and passionate team members that make the experience of working at Dennis Group rewarding. “My favorite project was my first large one at Treehouse where I got the chance to work with so many other engineers,” shared Liz. “We had a little disaster when starting up a filled-pretzel line, but everyone pulled together to troubleshoot. The cooling fans immediately after the oven were placed too close to the product and were interfering with the conveyance. The pretzels started stacking up and overflowing everywhere. It was like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, except it was raining pretzels.” Adam cited the Starbucks roastery project in Chicago as one of his favorites but emphasized that truly memorable projects are distinguished by the people he worked with. “I started as a junior packaging engineer and have expanded into a CM and PM role, but the one constant is the people.”

“I still like being in the field and getting to see the equipment start-up,” stated Matt. “One of the more challenging projects I worked on was a Pringles line replacement where we had to use a special type of diverter not typically used in this application. Normally a 1-2 lane diverter is 6-7′ long, but we had space constraints which required a lot of conveyor modifications and using a bottle rejector as a diverter.”

“One of my more challenging projects was for Kellogg’s,” Rod told us. “They were launching a new product – Rice Krispie treats enrobed in chocolate – and we had a mere 12 weeks to reconfigure the line and turn a maintenance shop into a bagging area. [The treats] needed to be enrobed without sticking together and then cleanly bagged. The floor had to be completely cut up to remove old dairy tile that sat under the current MRF floor to ensure we had no harborage points. It was a difficult but rewarding project.”

Not Just Vendor Engineering

One of the most common misperceptions of packaging engineering mentioned by the team was a general oversimplification of the work or a preconception that all systems are vendor engineered. Adam noted that while there are many vendor-led systems, “packaging equipment is extremely sophisticated and complex. One piece of equipment might have 5,000 pieces, each with their own mini process, mechanical, electrical, and automation components. Our job is to understand it enough to ensure it integrates wholly into the project.”

Matt Sargent elaborated, “I always coach our team to think about interoperability and how packaging relates the other systems as well as the space it occupies. We need to think through how we feed the machines, the orientation of the product, the run rates, the speeds. If we left everything up to vendors, they might not have the full story of how a piece of equipment fits into the bigger system.”

“The design phase requires both physical coordination and controls coordination,” Liz told us. “From a mechanical perspective we walk through the vendor drawings to understand how the product moves between unit operations. But we also need to work with the controls team to develop a functional description of how the line should operate when presented with different scenarios. It’s often helpful to run simulations of the line with our modeling team.”

What the Future Holds

Collaborative robots (cobots) – robots intended to interact with humans – are one exciting new packaging application our team sees being utilized more in the future. Cobots are flexible and can safely work near humans on a production line. They are being used to automate repetitive or physically demanding tasks, grip delicate food items, or perform high-precision handling.

Evolving consumer preferences and innovative marketing are driving the evolution of packaging materials and designs, necessitating unexpected changes in packaging equipment. We’re already seeing the impact, with sustainable, recyclable materials being lighter and potentially less robust than traditional options. This shift requires modifications in filling and handling processes to accommodate these new material characteristics. Rod reflected “What looks great on a shelf can be really challenging to automate. Crown Royal had a bottle in a bag with a necktie. Trying to automate that process and then put it in a case requires some pretty custom work. But we appreciate the new products developed by our clients’ marketing groups, because it gives our team new challenges.”

Whatever innovations or new technologies lie ahead, Dennis Group’s packaging team is armed with the expertise and readiness to navigate the future with confidence.