 Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Rebecca Marquez, and I'd like to welcome you to today's webinar on PMMI's Evolution of Automation Report. Over the next hour, we will listen to the findings of this report by author Donna Ritzen with DDR Communications, where she will discuss what's current, what's new, and what's changing. President of DDR Communications, Donna founded the company 25 years ago. DDR's business is based on a direct response methodology that delivers market research, business development, strategic alliance, and marketing intelligence to companies in virtually every business to business industry. DDR's experience is backed by over 35 years in marketing communications. A few housekeeping notes. Everyone on the call is muted throughout the webinar. If you have any questions that you would like to ask the presenter, please type your question in the chat box that is located in the bottom corner of the screen. At the end of this presentation, which will last approximately 45 to 50 minutes, Donna will be able to answer your questions. At this time, I would like to hand the webinar over to Donna Ritzen. Thank you, Rebecca, and thank you everyone for attending today's report on the Evolution of Automation. And as you can really see, what we're going to talk about today really is where is the technology today, and how is it changing, and where is it going? We've organized this report to look at the challenges, the opportunities, the advantages, the solutions, take a look at the future. So we'll go through all of that as we go through this here this morning. But certainly the technology is available today. Companies are beginning to adapt it. And you can see the key quote here on this page in 20 years. The plant manager at a food meat processing plant plans to be totally automated and IIOT deployed and active. And that's the goal where many companies are heading. So let's just take a quick look here at who participated in this report. So you've got a good idea of the voice of the industry and who is speaking throughout this report. We talked to end users the majority of the time. We talked in food, beverage, pharmaceutical, and personal care companies. We talked to some of the OEMs and we talked to some of the technology suppliers as well. And when we talked to the end users, we tried to reach large, medium, and small companies. Predominantly for this report, we talked to a lot of large companies. Those are the ones adopting the automation quicker. But we also get the voice of medium and small companies in this report. And digitalization is really, it's here to stay. We know that as consumers. We know that as business people. And automation in the manufacturing, processing, and packaging sector is really not just for the large companies. Medium companies and small companies are adopting and implementing many of the technologies that we're hearing about continuously in our emails and webinars every week that we're at work. We look at what do end users really want? Well, we know and we'll hear a little bit more about capital budgets are increasing. We've heard that in every market that we've studied for PMMI over the last 10 years even. Labor skills are lacking. That's something that creeps up in every conversation that we have with CPG companies. Engineering staffs in some instances are beginning to decline. Repetitive tasks are being taken over by robotics. A lot of co-bots are entering the workforce as well. In data acquisition, certainly a key component of automation today is continuing to advance quite rapidly. And all of this is to help the end users get a much more clear view of their operations, help them manage and analyze and transfer that data easier, and using that information to really help them take a predictive view and look at their company from an overall standpoint. And really where the industry is at in a big point right now is helping those CPG companies and those leaders of those companies really define what do they need to do, how do they need to get there, and how will they get there to be able to link their integration and their plant operations all in one. So if we look at this now, there's really six trends that are driving plant floor automation and six reasons similar to why there's just a gradual process. In this report got named the evolution of automation as opposed to a lot of what we hear is a revolution of automation, but it's really a gradual process. Some of the trends that are driving plant floor automation, as I just said, is certainly the lack of or difficulty in finding skilled labor, increasing demand that's going on in every market segment that we talk to and demand is increasing. And with that comes the need for more flexible marketing, I mean manufacturing, and also skews are increasing. Quality of the product is paramount and operating costs need to come down to be able to do this. And what's really helping that along is the smart technology and the co-bots that's coming out in the marketplace and being offered and available to every CPG company. And some of the reasons why it's I consider it or we heard it to be a gradual process, there needs to be education in the industry just in what do I do with this data, how do I collect it beyond just a manual collection, using it, storing it, and being able to apply it to the manufacturing floor. And now when I talk about automation throughout this report, I'm talking about both machine automation and software automation, and it's really a combined terminology of just automation. But certainly the legacy systems, the older systems that are out there are something that every company is dealing with. They have to make that decision. Do they upgrade it now? Do they buy new? How much of an older system can be upgraded? And then we do continuously hear about the convergence of the IT, the informational technology group, and the plant floor operational group coming together, and we'll hear more about that here in a few slides. Open platform standards is definitely needed in the industry. And just the security of systems is one of the hurdles that companies are overcoming and certainly an area where they continue to be, gain knowledge of securing their systems and being able to, both from a standpoint of product security and counter-fitting, as well as just the security of their data and their platform operations. So we were asked to try to measure where's the industry at today with some of these key technology adoptions. And really the best way to look at that, the process or the race of automation is the look at it as a marathon. We're going to put our best people forward in a marathon because they're going to reach the end line first. And it's the same thing in the manufacturing process. Those companies, and they're not all the largest companies, but the companies that are going to get to a fully industry 4.0 automation are your leaders in the industry. And everyone else is going to be spread out across that path. And that's exactly what's happening with automation adoption right now. Everyone is crossing the starting line, and they're over that starting line in terms of understanding they are in the race and they need to keep going. And how each company gets there in the timeframe in which they get there and cross that finish line to whatever finish line for them that is, it's definitely an evolution and it's a process. So when we look at where are we at today, the graphic on this page begins to show you where companies are at. Everyone is, like I had said, they've started over that beginning start line into automation. Some companies are much further along in what we look at a five-year and a ten-year mark. Some companies are already at that mark, particularly with machine automation that's much further along in the process. But as we go down this chart and we look at how many companies are actually fully IIOT deployed, there are some that we spoke to out there. Most of them are in the process and on the path to automation. And how are we going to get there? Terms here that we continuously hear about artificial intelligence, robots that can actually have some intuitive knowledge and can feel touch is going to be significant in terms of replacing menial or not menial necessarily, but manual tasks now that a cobot or a robot will be able to do. And smart glasses certainly to be able to interact with the environment, augmented reality technologies, allow them to be able to see a digital imagery overlaid on that physical world. So that's also something that is significantly involving. And this robotic shaft I thought was particularly interesting in just how it's changing the processing side of the line. And it's called April. And it's an automated processing robotic ingredient loading robot, which helps then loading those ingredients helps with consistency. It takes up less floor space. It has energy efficiency costs and just helps reduce the waste that can occur during ingredient adding at the beginning of the line. In some of the emerging technologies, and they're not necessarily just emerging, they're certainly being adopted and used on the software side. Digital twins, that's a bridge between the physical and the digital world that's really changing the applications and concepts of digital twinning is being used and evolving every day. Remote machine monitoring certainly brings us access for a far greater connected plant floor. Being able to have troubleshooting and data analysis and remote monitoring on networks is already underway. We'll hear a bit about that. Some of the drawbacks or hurdles to overcome from that certainly is the security issues that all companies are concerned about and rightly so. The digital or reality modeling is significant as well, allows for faster building times, earlier production starts, optimized layout of a plant floor, rapid model creation. This is being used and deployed by several of the OEMs that we spoke with directly. So if we look at start out with what are some of the challenges, integration certainly is an obstacle all in itself. So what are companies looking at and what are some of the challenges that they're facing? We broke this up because end users, OEMs and technology suppliers all come at it from a little bit different angle and what's their challenge. But it does all revolve around cost in the workforce and educating that workforce and looking at an open platform communications. But the end users say they are challenged with obviously capital expenses to advance automation. That's always going to be there. Although as we see in a couple slides ahead here, budgets are increasing and just developing that technical skill to be able to support the machinery and software and automation and looking to partnering with the right people and the right suppliers. And the OEMs talk about the challenges just being able to get the support that they need from their CPG companies at a top level so that some of those automation changes can begin to occur. And there's a growing application for collaborative robots. We see that in our news every day of companies that are showing improvements and process improvements through robotic and collaborative robotic usage. And then again, finding the right engineers to work on smart machines. It's not just the CPG companies that have that as a challenge. All entities in the manufacturing sector all have trouble finding skilled labor to run and operate and maintain smarter machines. The technology suppliers talk about moving, the challenge of moving to an open communication platform standard and an IIOT and architectural standard. And educating the industry. What's available? What can they do? How do they do it? How do they begin to move down that path? And then just to add a technical competency and willingness for customers to invest in automation. Similar to what the OEMs talked about is gaining that support at a high level so that the funding does become available to automate and optimize plant floors. And certainly one of the game changers in all of this is just the retail demands that are changing. The explosion in e-commerce for quicker delivery. These are all things that continue to drive automation forward. And there's a lot in these slides that I've put in here for a purpose. These presentations have a tendency to take a life of their own once the webinar is over. You can take this back to your teams and hence I put more information in these slides so that you can go back and have that conversation with your internal people as well. And here on this slide on page 11 we're looking at just the legacy systems and what can be upgraded. Certainly we heard about controls can be upgraded. Connectivity and motion. But again it's the decision of when do you upgrade a machine and when is it best to purchase a new machine. But certainly the new technology is not limited to just new machines. Program conversions can take place. Upgrades to the interface system as well. Allowing some bidirectional data exchange internally or with the cloud or with the Edge or with your mobile devices or tablets. Servo usage is certainly something that has the ability to just increase the smartness of the machine and help for reviewing torque cycles for maintenance information. And then we did hear about if equipment is 15 to 20 years old or newer or younger, it does have the capability to add some of the communication controls in there. So it really does become a fact of really looking at the machine itself and that's where a lot of the integration services are coming into play. Older systems can be upgraded with gateways to provide data collection, but newer systems do provide a greater level of security already built in and have some limited built-in access for users being able to access that data. So some of the newer machines are going to have all of that built into it. And then we did hear a lot about in our conversation this convergence that needs to take place between the IT and OT floors to really bring their networks together so they really can look at a smarter plant floor with a holistic view. And for the most part over half of the companies we talked to they said, yes, it's underway. Some companies felt that they had that already taken care of that their IT and OT departments were working closely together. But there's certainly, it's an evolution like everything else. It needs improvement. Some companies were not quite sure what their departments were doing and how that was being handled, but overall there's a movement in that direction in the entire industry. And some of the things that they're going to reap from these benefits, you know, reduce downtime, the reverse of that, certainly maximizing uptime is what every company is looking for, lowering operational costs, energy costs, certainly increasing operator safety, and then the whole preventive and even the predictive maintenance alerts that can be put on a machine to help companies understand when maybe a component is reaching its life cycle and should be replaced before it actually breaks down and causes downtime. And again we continuously hear the flexibility that's needed in changeovers, shorter changeover times, excuse increase. It's just something that CPG companies, it ends up on the top of every list in every conversation that we have with them. So if we want to look now at some of the opportunities, where's the equipment going to be going? How are they going to utilize big data and how are they going to accomplish some of the gains that this has to offer? Well we did hear two out of three companies are increasing their capital budgets. And as I mentioned we've heard that in the last five or six reports we've done with PMMI, capital budgets are increasing. Particularly we asked in this case, are they dedicated budgets just for automation? And yes some companies are dedicating a portion of their capital budget that will just be for increasing their automation. And if we look at overall up on the top right hand side of this slide it talks about just a continued growth in overall US manufacturing output. Increasing 10% for now for the next couple of years. And even further out than that until 2025 which it seems far away but it's not that far away, 25% increase. So overall just the increasing, keeping up with demand is one of the most important things that's really driving the investment in automation. Like we said on the previous slide, worker safety, reducing costs, just either replacing labor or the difficulty in finding labor, preventing waste in the entire system. If you've got new products, a lot of times new products we hear are building new lines and those new lines are being automated. Just again the whole green initiative in reduction in packaging and certainly new packaging designs as you know flexible packaging continues to gain ground as well as just new shapes, unique interactions with packaging and hence automation is really driving a lot of that. We look at here, this slide is a little bit busy but what we looked at and I'll walk you through this is we looked at what kinds of smart or machine technologies or end users looking for and how is that being provided by the OEMs and technology suppliers. If you look at it really from the top down the interactive, intuitive HMI, smarter sensors, safety improvements are all at the top of the list but they all have an important role. And so what's coming out in the marketplace, certainly more intuitive HMIs with a dashboard type view, more mobile connectivity, more HMI smart phone on your smart phone or your tablet, getting that information instantaneously regardless of where you could be. Sensors are certainly moving forward, that's one of the greatest data collection points in terms of bringing that smart technology into a more visual view. Open safety, so there's a fully automated safety communications platform certainly with more flexible line production, more programming, intuitive software, more compatibility in the software, achieving more production with less maintenance. Rapid changeover, as I mentioned earlier, that's always on the list in terms of faster changeover, faster clean ability to allow for more flexible production. Self-tuning and self-calibration where a machine can be smart to know how to begin to make corrections and communicate those corrections that need to be made. And digital simulation, we talked about that earlier in terms of the whole digital twin and the reality monitoring and augmented reality. And just greater access of information analysis for real-time efficiency and OEE which certainly the OPEX group has helped put some parameters around calculating OEE. And then we talked about robotics as part of our conversation, how are they using robotics now and will it continue to increase? And the answer to both of those is yes. 90% nearly every company that we spoke to has some robotics somewhere along their plant line and they predict that that will continue to increase. And if we look at some of the statistics coming out from the IFR, robotics are increasing 32% in North America just in the first quarter of this year. So significant growth and a lot of that growth is occurring in other industries besides packaging and processing but it's also got a big chunk of that is now showing up in the packaging and processing lines. And where on the line are they increasing? Certainly at the front of the line, there's robotics being added for depalitizing and in many industries just the cutting, coating, feeding process of the beginning of the line. And then when there's direct product handling at the filling, dosing, pick and place areas, there's more robotics being introduced as well. But the lion's share of some of that robotic increasing at this time is at the end of the line. Secondary packaging and palletizing areas. And what are end users looking for? Again, equipment that's easy to use. It communicates along the line and certainly having the support services is paramount in needing support from the OEMs and technology suppliers. So three out of the five manufacturers, they do require customized machinery and oftentimes that customized machinery, if it's automated, it oftentimes requires customization. And when we look at a collaborative effort, end users for the most part, we do hear they continue to use their internal engineers most often for support but really it's growing into a more collaborative effort to be able to achieve remote diagnostics and data management as we've heard. Integrating that machine along the entire line really does require an effort of outside services as well as inside services. Then we look at how many companies really have lines fully integrated. Really only when we look at it from a machinery standpoint one of five lines is fully automated. And then again using the analogy of a marathon, every company beyond that has a mix of some machines might be 50% standalone. There might be some machines that are still remaining in process of being integrated. There might be a couple of machines on the line that are integrated. So every processing and packaging line is at a different stage of integrating and automating that intelligence. And we did hear the 3D model-based engineering most and many of the OEMs that we interviewed are using this process certainly to improve design, improve time delivery, and being able to certainly see things in augmented fashion before it becomes in the physical fashion. And then some of the automation advantages, machine data and automation. This one quote here on this page I think is very telling data by itself is useless. It really has to be collected, displayed, and analyzed to become useful. And what we did hear is many, most of end-user CPG companies are collecting at least some data and that does include manual collection. So they do feel that they're in step with beginning to gain that intelligence on the plant floor. Some of the expectations they hope to find on operational improvement, certainly once they are fully deployed with data collection is increasing uptime. Again, that's always at the top of the list. Being able to manage their production schedules much more efficiently, being able to understand change over quicker, and processing those schedules much more efficiently. And then again the predictive maintenance and correctional features that automation will bring and just their production counts, improving run rates and throughput. Certainly this is the basis, this is where companies are starting. If they want to know where do we start with automation, data collection is one of the places that they're starting. And what are the top five also improvements that they want to achieve once they're automated, run multiple sizes. They want that flexibility on a line that has fast changeover, automated changeover, reducing labor. Even though skilled labor is getting difficult to find, they're also looking to replace tasks that can be automated. Line efficiency, again, to maximize uptime and shorter runs with the whole customization of our products that we're looking at. Companies are looking at shorter runs, particularly, we see this in some of the beverage runs where they're customizing beverage bottles and then minimizing change over time. All of that comes down to more personalized service to the consumer. They need to be able to have changeover time that's extremely quick. We did talk about total cost of ownership. About half of the participants are calculating total cost of ownership. But in the same breath we would hear that some companies say we don't think we calculate it very efficiently. We have our own calculation of how we do that. So certainly helping companies understand how to get at the total cost of ownership really can be a beneficial differentiator in how they're choosing their machinery in the future. So some of the automation solutions, technology in the years ahead, just being able to embrace automation is significant for smarter machines on the plant floor. The characteristics that really are involved is having a machine that's really a smart machine, being aware, being able to collect data, manage that data, communicate that data. It's a safer, more secure operation, certainly both for cybersecurity for the plant worker and just having a safer work environment. Flexibility, we hear about this continuously. Lines need to be flexible. Machines need to plug and work. I thought that was an interesting statement. I'd not heard that before. One of the people that we interviewed said it's not just plug and play, it needs to plug and work. Modularity is certainly important in the flexibility in developing a flexible line and having something that you can reuse again, a recipe that is on the HMI that they can use or they can model a line and be able to replicate that easily. And certainly last is the connectivity piece that makes it the IIOT or industry 4.0 ready, having the network across the entire line and into the plant floor, and having that digital mobility that it comes to either your smartphone or your tablet or with internally inside an operation that they get that information quickly. When we talk to the OEMs, we're trying to find out how many machines are considered smart machines that are ready for IIOT. In about a third of the OEMs that we talked to said their machines are 90 to 100% ready. So the technology is available, the machines are being developed, and certainly the adoption processes is moving forward. And I think here it's an interesting quote from this copacker as well. It gives you an idea of the advancement. He talks about his growth in the past seven years has been unbelievable and they've gone from pretty much zero automation and now they're 70 to 75% automated. So he looks at it from their standpoint, it's just simply hard to get labor. So then now we move on to the next question we kind of get involved in in our interview process is what standards are CPG companies looking for? Top of the list communications protocol that's been at the top of the list for a couple of years ever since even when we did the robotics report several years ago. And what's gonna drive some of these standards? Certainly a cooperative atmosphere in the industry adhering to some of the principles that are needed. And again, just a collective availability in adopting these standards that are gonna begin to emerge. And it really is a natural process and it's really being driven because machines need to communicate the disparate control platforms that are out there and the legacy systems and the legacy machines that are out there in order to achieve industry 4.0 or an integrated line. And many of these different control systems and safety systems and standards on data collection and HMI and even cleanability. We heard a lot about that from particularly the more wet processes of meat and poultry processing where cleanability is just paramount in terms of them having a quicker change over process. And we really looked at well then how many companies are really transferring data now? How many are utilizing the cloud? About half of the CPG companies that we spoke to are transferring data over the internet but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to the cloud. But a fourth of the end users that we talked to are transferring their data into the cloud. They've achieved cyber security. They feel secure in what they're doing but it certainly does remain one of the hurdles to overcome with a continued need for education for all of us in terms of what are the new systems that are being developed that can help secure that data and move that connectivity forward. Then we look at remote connectivity. This is a conversation that we've talked about quite a bit over the years and it is steadily moving forward. Again it's that connection and that openness. A lot of them have VPN connections and secure connections to allow someone to come into their system on a short term basis. And so we tried to get an idea of where's the industry at and it kind of split up here in this pie chart in a fourth of each segment. There's a fourth of the industry that has about 50 to 100% of their machines are remote ready. Then you've got a fourth of them who don't even allow remote access at this time in another fourth of them that have about 15 to 30% of their machines are remote connectivity ready. And then another fourth approximately that have very few machines that they have remote connectivity on today. So it's again broad spectrum of where companies are at with allowing remote connectivity and even having the machines available to do that. But about everyone that we spoke to does predict that that will continue to increase in the next five years as automation takes over, data collection takes over and that information needs to be transferred and certainly helps with troubleshooting and just the overall operational visibility of the plan. Some of the advantages we know of remote connectivity just the whole optimization, preventive maintenance, even predictive maintenance and troubleshooting, and then downloading recipes even from within plant to plant. So if we took a look now at automation where's the future of automation going? It's certainly here to stay. The early adopters as I'd said earlier when I gave the analogy of a marathon race, they've identified what some of these competitive advantages are, what new business models they're creating that are really helping them to increase their revenue, cut costs and improve customer support and service and that's exactly what CPG companies are looking for. So if we look at this from a standpoint of opportunities in the industry, where are they? Certainly offering intuitive maintenance and having machines that are integration ready and again this flexible to changing with manufacturing demands is certainly at the top of the list. More robust equipment with minimal maintenance that's required to be able to achieve line integration and really be able to have optimal run performance. Flexible machinery, again we continuously have heard about this. It's really having the design strategies that are needed to provide machine flexibility for variances in packaging sizes and packaging styles and smarter machines, intuitive HMI and troubleshooting and remote access, all the things we've just heard about in the previous slides to really provide enhanced diagnostics and data sensors. And then this convergence of IT and OT, it is one of the hurdles we talked about but that interface on the plant floor between OT and IT certainly will be able to bring together a more creative collaborative process. Then if we look at providing what services are they looking for, really again it's training, education and consulting and we heard that at the beginning of the presentation. Really helping CPG companies understand how to utilize their data better. Training tools that help with and assist with maintenance and troubleshooting. And really just as we've heard in many PMMI reports, understanding their individual needs is really paramount to, again if you look at the analogy of a marathon race, where is the companies at that you service, where are they at in their automation process, what do they need help with? Are they really looking to help understand the TCO, the total cost of ownership and the OEE and are they looking for predictive maintenance and even preventive maintenance. So helping them get to those levels is really important. And again then back to the education piece. Just helping them educate what's available, what is best for their systems. There's so much that comes at us every day in terms of, like I said earlier, webinars and emails and how to's and white papers and the five steps to getting started and there's so much information coming out. Helping them decipher that information is really important. And we have heard, we heard from several people this was particularly a director at a technology supplier. Said that the US really does need to step up and be more competitive in a global market. Europe's operations are at a higher level of automation and flexibility and their equipment and their operations. So something that CPG companies here certainly are moving towards. And when we look at the future, in terms of jobs, we continuously do hear that robotics are taking jobs. While that is true, there's also the element of new jobs that are out there. The new automated technology engineer certainly is gonna have to have much more expertise in CAD programs and PLCs and just critical thinking and overall global perspective and an overall view of their plant floor. And the technology operator's gonna have to have more control and more understanding of robotics and research and just the whole electrical networks and mechatronics. And your machine technician is also gonna have to have a much greater intuitive learning tools to help them through the HMI and help them understand what needs to get done and where is it going. And then this whole interaction of data exchange between the computers and the robotics and out to the edge into the cloud and to mobile devices, this is all gonna take maintenance and understanding to get there. And it was interesting as career builders noted that 68% of the companies that create new jobs after they automate. So there are new jobs to be had. There's new jobs in the future that we aren't even aware of what those new jobs would be. So that kind of brings us to the end here of taking a look out at the future. And this is 20 years ago this was predicted. These farm scapers that taking old skyscrapers or abandoned skyscrapers and turning them into food production areas. And if we look at the United Nations prediction that by 2050 we need to increase our food production by 70%, automation is gonna help us get there and automation will help us continue to deliver on the needs of the global food production needs of the future. Well, companies are really, we really didn't hear that companies were striving to do lights out manufacturing where it's fully automated and there's little human presence even on site. There are some operations that are operating around the world with a total lights out manufacturing. And I think one of the biggest game changers we're gonna see and we all saw this at PAC Expo was e-commerce as we know is continuing to increase in significant leaps and bounds. And now having that delivery done by a drone and possibly a driverless vehicle is really a game changer we're gonna see as we go forward and continuously automation will allow that to continue to happen. So I do encourage you to download the full report. I have only highlighted really kind of given you an idea of what's contained in this report. There's far more detail about the challenges, the obstacles that companies are facing in upgrading legacy systems and the opportunities out there certainly with capital budgets increasing and customization and automation, automation often causing customization of the machine and the advantages of data collection and the advantages of machinery automation, what some of those solutions are, we get into much more detail in the report of what some of those solutions are. As well, the report what makes these PMMI reports really unique is not just the interviews that we have with CPG companies, but we go out and we reference and we bring in the collective intelligence of the industry. So there's a lot of references in this report really to be used as a resource guide as well. And so that does bring us to the conclusion of our presentation here. There's certainly more fact-filled resources that you'll get from your PMMI Business Intelligence Group. And so we thank you for attending the webinar today. If there are any questions, Rebecca, I'll turn this back over to you. Donna, thank you for the insights you've provided on this latest report on automation. And as Donna said, we'd like to open up the session for questions. If you have any questions, please feel free to type them into the message or chat box at the bottom of your screen and we'll give it just a minute to see if anybody comes through with any questions. Okay, Donna, we do have a question. There's a lot being said in this report about the need for customization and really, really custom products for end users and how the information that OEMs should have has to be pretty detailed so they can provide that customization that works. Is there anything that you can tell us that you talked about the nature of the relationships between OEMs and end users changing to sort of be more collaborative? Definitely, they're definitely being brought to the table sooner. And if you look at the food processing report, we got into that in a little more detail specifically in the food processing report because we wanted to understand that exact relationship and when are they coming together collectively at the negotiation table? And we looked at it from a standpoint that really has evolved because if we go back in time in some of our previous PMMI reports, really almost half of the OEMs now are being brought in at the onset of project development and a good next third of them even at the initial design stages. So it really has moved up that relationship is closer now between the CPG companies and the OEMs and the technology suppliers to come together in a collaborative effort. So yes, very good question and we do see that those relationships changing. Thanks, Donna. We do have another question. One of the audiences asking if, well they're asking if PMMI has this information but I can put it to this particular report, does the full report have any information on automation growth opportunities specifically as they pertain to palletizing and secondary packaging? We did not follow growth trends in that area but we did know that particularly in robotics, robotics is growing at a faster rate at end of the line for packaging and palletizing, case packing as well. I do believe, Rebecca, there is some very good statistics that can be had from the state of the industry report on specifically different segments and machine components. Okay, thanks and I can reach out to the person who asked that question with further information on that. We'll leave it open for questions for just another moment. Okay, it looks like that's probably all the questions we have for now but I would like to remind everyone in the audience that if you do come up with something that you have a question about, you can feel free to email me at my email address and that's rmarquez at PMMI.org or Paula Feldman and we will make sure to get with Donna to answer your question for you. So. We can just get one more here, Rebecca. Yep, I see that now. Okay, so the question is, do we think that product package sizes, bottle shapes, et cetera, will be affected by the trend in automation? Is that something? Make it easier to automate the two and require to run them. Just from what we know and what we've heard, automation is not just because someone's automated and has now made it easier to retool. Yes, it could definitely move a CPG company in a direction that says let's look at a different shape because it's easier for us to implement that shape now into our process. Yes, that could definitely be an outlier of automation but as we know, a lot of the container and the materials and the shape are really dictated by the product itself but yes, to answer your question, that could definitely be something that will affect that going forward just because automation is going to allow a more flexible line and faster changeover and ultimately maximize uptime. Okay, so we can, if there's any other questions, we'll just leave it open for another moment and again, you can feel free to type them in the bottom chat box of your screen. Okay, well if there's no more questions for the day, again, you can always feel free to email us at PMMI and we will make sure that your question gets answered if you come up with something after you're mulling over the information that you've just received and we would be happy to help you and get you an answer to that question. So on behalf of PMMI, thank you so much for participating in today's webinar. As a final note, you'll each receive an email to complete an evaluation for today's webinar. We really want to give you the best content and best webinars that we can so please complete the evaluation as soon as possible and let us know if there's anything we can do to improve our webinars in the future. It's a very brief evaluation and Donna, once again, thank you so much. This was a great webinar, really good information and the full report is available on PMMI.org so you can download that today.