PACKAGING TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE VOL 1 73-75 (1988)

A Database of Packaging Laboratory Test Equipment

John Salisbury 123 Battenhall Road, Worcester, WR5 2BU

The paper reports a recent data base produced for, and available to National Packaging Centres, in developing countries. The ITC in Geneva hold the material which is updated regularly. It should enable enquirers to ascertain details of the equipment they require and to choose between several alternatives.

Keywords: Packaging test equipment; ITC data base

The purchase of packaging laboratory test equip- ment is not something that is done very frequently and when the time does come it is often difficult for those involved to obtain information on what is available on the world markets before making a selection. Equipment selection is usually done with the help of experienced professionals and they will naturally tend to choose equipment with which they are already familiar. However, this may not be the most suitable, for many changes have taken place in recent years.

The United Nations agencies have been in- volved with selecting and purchasing laboratory test equipment for centralized packaging labor- atories for over 20 years. The range of equipment purchased covers testing equipment to measure the physical and chemical properties of packaging materials such as plastics, paper and board, wood, metal, glass and textiles, the test equip- ment normally found in transport testing labor- atories that measures the effects of vibration, compression, vertical and horizontal impacts,

0894-3214/88/02007~3$05.00 @ 1988 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

shock, etc. and equipment for retail pack testing, the most important of which are the cabinets to reproduce the effects of moisture, temperature, sunlight, etc.

One of the difficulties faced by these organiza- tions has been the location of optimum sources of supply and the International Trade Centre/ UNCTAD/GATT set out to improve this situa- tion by bringing together information from many sources into a computer database. The work was inspired by their Chief Packaging Adviser, Johan Selin, and the database was created by Consultant John Salisbury. The Testeq database has already proved a great help to consultants and others concerned with the selection of test equipment for packaging laboratories.

The first requirement in creating the database was to establish what kind of information should be extracted from the literature supplied by manufacturers or their agents, i.e. what para- meters would help a user of the database decide if the equipment being described appeared to fit the

74 J. SALISBURY

quested directly from the manufacturer or his agent once a piece of test equipment has been identified as appearing to suit the laboratory’s needs.

Although the main function of the Testeq database is the location of sources of supply of test equipment, its use has highlighted other aspects such as: (a) the very wide variety of techniques that are in

use when testing a given property, for example when measuring stiffness in the paper and board industry. This question of variety will be the subject of later articles in which possible sources of supply for the different types will be given.

(b) the degree of complexity of the equipment itself. The idea of feeding the output from the test instrument directly to a computer, so that any necessary calculations could be done immediately and the results analysed statisti- cally, was an impressive development. So too was the idea of not just using a small computer in the laboratory but of sending the final results directly to the company’s central computer so that they could be retrieved not only by the section requesting the work but by any one else who would benefit from this information. These would include the Re- search and Development Department, the Technical Sales Department, and others on special assignments.

To many people this degree of sophistication may seem unnecessary and only relevant to the technical services of large companies. The early microprocessor-controlled equipment was some- times very complicated to use, it began to look as if you would need a degree in physics just to do a few simple tensile tests. However, that situation changed with the development of menu-based programs that lead the user through various testing techniques a step at a time. Many Universal testers have this facility and more recently Melt Flow Indexers come with a program that specifies how to carry out the determination, and does all the calculations necessary very rapidly. There is a new impact tester that drives a probe downwards through a plastic specimen, uses transducers to sense the forces reacting against it and feeds the output to a computer for analysis, for graphing or printing out, and the operator is guided through the whole operation a step at a time.

laboratory’s needs. The final list of fields chosen brings together information on these characteris- tics:

Purpose Test equipment and accessories Special features Electricity Other services Price indication Supplier Recommended spares Priority Test methods Comments

The essential details of some 1100 pieces of test equipment have been entered so far.

The next step was to develop the programs necessary for searching the database for selected items and they can now be carried out on:

A Descriptor. One of the following broad groups: paper & Board, Plastics, Glass, Wood, Textile, Transport, Printing or General can be selected.

A Keyword. Wherever possible this is the physical or chemical property being tested, e.g. tensile strength, smoothness, friction, permeabil- ity, pH, compression resistance, but sometimes only a direct description of the equipment can be used e.g. oven, guillotine. Most searches are carried out using the most appropriate keyword chosen from the keyword list.

A Descriptor + A Keyword. If one is searching for information concerning compression testing of glass containers, it may be helpful to eliminate all those designed specifically for compression test- ing transport packs.

A Supplier. A Supplier + A Keyword. This combination

becomes very important when checking if a given piece of test equipment has already been entered.

When equipment is required to carry out specified tests, it is possible to rapidly obtain printouts of possible types with details of their sources of supply and approximate cost. It must be emphasized that cost data can never be more than approximate because it is so much influ- enced by such factors as currency exchange rates, inflation, the data of the last estimate, shipping charges, local agents fees, etc. It is also the case that the compute? entry is not a substitute for the manufacturer’s literature which should be re-

PACKAGING TEST DATABASE 75

It is this facility for printing out all the conditions under which the test is carried out, as well as the record of the calculated and analysed results that will be of interest to many laborator- ies. The operator is happy to be led through the chosen procedure (which can be a recognized national or international standard or one used only by the company), the Laboratory Manager is assured that the tests were carried out in the correct way and the client can have a printout that records not only the results but the conditions prevailing during the test.

Computer controlled equipment is expensive,

but the benefits can be very real indeed and must be given serious consideration when the time comes to acquire new test equipment.

Information from the Testeq database will be available to developing countries through their National Packaging Centres who will contact the International Trace Centre/UNCTAD GATT in Geneva. Those who do not qualify for this type of assistance but would like to consider using the database facility, should contact J . Salisbury, 123 Battenhall Road, Worcester WR5 2BU, England (Tel. +44 905 354098).