Software libraries increase programming efficiencies and improve machine-to-machine communication

The executive committee of the OMAC Packaging Workgroup (OPW) officially approved PackAL (Packaging Application Library) at their 2006 spring meeting on February 23rd held in Orlando, Florida. PackAL will be added to the OPW Guidelines for Packaging Machinery Automation. An updated version of these guidelines, Version 3.1, is scheduled to be released in April.

PackAL is an application library of common software elements used in packaging applications that was developed by the PackSoft subgroup of the OPW. The application library is made up of 23 functions. Thirteen functions are common packaging machine functions (such as Wind/Unwind, Dancer Control, Registration, Indexing, Flying Sync and others), nine functions are communication functions for horizontal line communications, and one function is reserved for the PackML machine state model.

At the Orlando meeting, the North-American companies Bosch Rexroth Corporation, Siemens Energy & Automation Inc. and Beckhoff Automation announced PackAL libraries as an add-on to their respective control platforms. The PackAL libraries will be available for download in the next few weeks from the companies‘ websites.

Leading the technical subcommittee for PackSoft, Gerd Hoppe, Beckhoff Automation CTO said, "The PackAL standard creates a common look and feel in software elements for functionality and communication in packaging machinery. The benefits are considerable for both machine builders and end users. They are freed from unnecessary programming efforts and more of their valuable time can become available for process-specific solutions."
As an application link layer, PackAL abstracts from the network layer and provides a connection between machines in addition to the fieldbus. The third segment is a software template to standardize the programming of the PackML machine state model.

OMAC www.omac.org
Beckhoff Automation www.beckhoff.com/packaging

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