In this guide
What to bring, and why most visitors show up empty-handed
The difference between a useful booth conversation and a brochure handoff is almost always the same five numbers. Most people do not have them, and the conversation stays generic.
Every integrator on the floor will ask you some version of the same questions. If you can answer them in the first two minutes, the rest of the meeting is about your line. If you cannot, the rest of the meeting is about the machine in front of you — which is a sales pitch, not an evaluation.
Put these on your phone before you fly. A note, a photo, anything you can pull up standing in a loud aisle. You do not need a drawing or a formal spec sheet; you need the numbers that determine whether a machine is even a candidate.
If you can answer five questions in the first two minutes, the rest of the meeting is about your line — not about the machine in front of you.
- Case dimensions and weight
- Length, width, height and loaded weight of the case you actually ship most. If you run several, bring your largest and your smallest — the spread matters more than the average.
- Target rate
- Cases per minute at the end of the line, not bottles per minute at the filler. If you are buying for growth, bring both today's rate and the rate you are planning for.
- SKU count and changeover frequency
- How many formats run on the line, and how often you switch. A machine that is perfect for one SKU can be the wrong answer for twelve.
- Available floor space
- Rough footprint in feet, plus ceiling height and where the line feeds in and out. Half of end-of-line automation decisions are decided by geometry.
- A phone video of the line running
- Thirty seconds of the actual bottleneck is worth more than any description. It is the single most useful thing you can carry onto a show floor.
Your ticks are saved in this browser, so you can come back and finish it before you fly.
Reading the floor at McCormick Place
PACK EXPO International fills multiple halls. Walking it without a route means you will see a lot of conveyor and miss the two machines you came for.
Booth numbers carry their hall in the prefix. A booth beginning with N is in the North Building, S is South, W is West and L is Lakeside. Ours is N-4733, so North. Once you know the convention you can read any exhibitor list as a map instead of a spreadsheet.
Build a shortlist before you arrive and sort it by hall, not by priority. The halls are large and connected by long concourses; a route that zig-zags between buildings burns an hour you could have spent watching machines run. Group your must-see booths by prefix, walk each hall once, and leave the browsing for whatever time is left.
Book your priority meetings in advance. Show-floor engineers spend the day on their feet and the good ones get claimed early. A confirmed slot means someone is expecting you with your notes already in hand, rather than catching whoever happens to be free.
- Sort by hall, then walk
- Group your shortlist by booth-number prefix and clear one building at a time. Backtracking between halls is the most common way visitors lose a morning.
- Mornings are for evaluation
- Floors get loud and crowded after lunch. Put the machines you actually need to study in the first half of the day.
- Wear shoes you can stand in for eight hours
- Unglamorous, and the single most common regret we hear at the booth on day three.
Live demo or showpiece: how to tell the difference
A machine standing still under good lighting tells you nothing. A machine running tells you almost everything — if you watch the right part of the cycle.
Plenty of booths display equipment that never moves during the show. That is not necessarily a red flag; some machines genuinely cannot be shipped and run in a convention hall. But a static display means you are evaluating a photograph, and you should weight it accordingly.
When a machine is running, resist watching the impressive part. The robot arm swinging a case is the part built to look good. Watch the boring parts instead: the infeed, the moment of pick, the placement, and what happens when something does not go perfectly. That is where the engineering either holds up or does not.
The strongest question you can ask at a running demo is whether it can run your case. Bring dimensions, and ask. A vendor who can tell you honestly that your case is outside the machine's window has just saved you months, and told you something true about how they will behave after the sale.
Resist watching the impressive part. The robot arm swinging a case is built to look good. Watch the infeed.
- Watch the infeed, not the arm
- Product arriving unevenly is the real-world condition. How the machine handles a gap or a jam matters more than its cycle time on a perfect feed.
- Ask to see a changeover
- If the machine will run more than one format on your line, a changeover is the demo that matters. Ask how long it takes and who can do it — an operator or a technician.
- Ask what is not shown
- Safety guarding, controls cabinets and conveyors are often simplified for the show. Ask what the real installation adds in footprint and cost.
Palletizers: what to watch for on the floor
Robotic and gantry palletizers solve the same problem with different trade-offs. Seeing both run back to back is the clearest way to understand which one your line actually needs.
A robotic palletizer uses an articulated arm and handles higher payloads, faster cycles and more complex stacking patterns. A gantry palletizer moves along fixed axes; it is simpler, has fewer wear points and generally costs less, which makes it a strong fit for low-to-medium speed lines that do not need pattern gymnastics.
Neither is universally better. The decision usually comes down to three things: your rate, your payload, and how many patterns you need to switch between. A line running one SKU at a modest rate is often better served by the simpler machine — and a vendor who tells you that, instead of upselling, is worth remembering.
Watch the pattern change. Ask what happens when you add a new case size next year: is it a parameter on the HMI, or does it require a programmer? That answer will shape your operating cost far more than the purchase price does.
- Payload headroom
- Check the rated payload against your heaviest loaded case, including the gripper. A machine running at the edge of its rating ages faster.
- Pattern flexibility
- Ask how a new stacking pattern gets created and who can do it. Operator-configurable patterns on the HMI are worth real money over a machine's life.
- Footprint and reach
- Cell footprint including guarding, not just the machine. Ask for the layout drawing, not the brochure photo.
- Maintenance profile
- Which parts wear, how often, and whether your own maintenance team can service them or you are calling the vendor every time.
| Compared | Robotic palletizer | Gantry palletizer |
|---|---|---|
| Published starting price | From USD $165,000 | From USD $99,000 |
| Best suited to | Flexible, higher-speed lines | Low-to-medium speed lines |
| Payload | Higher payload capacity | Up to 65 lb (32 kg) |
| Cycle time | Faster cycle times | Moderate |
| Operating profile | More configurable | Simple, nearly maintenance-free |
Case packers: what to watch for on the floor
Case packing is where product handling gets specific. A machine that runs beautifully with a rigid carton can struggle with a flexible pouch, and the show floor is the only place you will see the difference in person.
The core question is how your product gets collated and loaded. Products that nest, products that are unstable standing up, products in film — each drives a different loading approach. Bring a sample if you can; a vendor who can put your actual product in front of the machine is telling you something no spec sheet can.
Rate claims on case packers are always conditional. A published figure like twelve cartons per minute assumes a particular product format, carton size and packaging configuration. Ask what that number was measured with, and what your format would do to it. An honest answer includes a range and the conditions.
Look hard at the case erecting and sealing end. It is the least glamorous part of the machine and the most common source of nuisance downtime in the field. Ask what happens with a slightly out-of-spec blank, because you will eventually get a pallet of them.
- Product handling method
- How your specific product gets picked, collated and loaded. This is the part that does not generalize between products.
- Rate, with conditions attached
- Any throughput number should come with the format it was measured on. Ask what your format does to it.
- Changeover time and who performs it
- Minutes, and whether it needs tools. Multiply by your changeover frequency to get the real annual cost.
- Controls and HMI
- Whether your team can diagnose a fault from the screen, or whether every stoppage is a phone call.
Nine questions that turn a brochure into a quote
These are the questions we get asked by the buyers who end up running good projects. They are also the questions that make a weak vendor uncomfortable, which is useful information on its own.
You do not need all nine in every conversation. But if you get through a booth visit without asking at least the first four, you have collected a brochure rather than evaluated a supplier.
'What would make this the wrong machine for me?' Everyone can describe a fit. Fewer can describe a misfit honestly.
- 1. Can this machine run my case, at my rate?
- The screening question. A straight yes, no, or 'close, here is what would change' is what you want.
- 2. What is the realistic installed cost, not the machine price?
- Installation, integration, controls, safety and commissioning are frequently excluded from a headline price. Ask for the delta.
- 3. What is the lead time, and what drives it?
- A number without a reason is a guess. Ask which long-lead components set it.
- 4. Who does the integration with my existing line?
- The upstream and downstream connections are where projects go wrong. Find out whether the vendor owns that or hands it off.
- 5. What does changeover look like for my SKUs?
- Time, tools, and whether an operator or a technician performs it.
- 6. What spare parts do you recommend stocking?
- A vendor with field experience has a specific answer. A vague one suggests limited installed base.
- 7. Who services this, and how fast can they reach me?
- Distance and staffing, not a promise. Ask where the nearest technician actually is.
- 8. Can I talk to a customer running something similar?
- The reference call is the highest-value thing you can ask for and the most commonly skipped.
- 9. What would make this the wrong machine for me?
- The most revealing question on the list. Everyone can describe a fit. Fewer can describe a misfit honestly.
Red flags on a show floor
Trade shows reward presentation, which means the signal you want is often in what is missing rather than what is on display.
None of these are disqualifying on their own. Booths get busy, engineers step away, and some equipment genuinely cannot be demonstrated in a convention hall. But a booth that hits several of them is telling you how the relationship will go once the purchase order is signed.
- Nobody technical at the booth
- If every person on the stand is sales, you cannot get a real answer about your line. Ask directly whether an engineer is on site today.
- No price range, under any conditions
- Scoped pricing is normal and reasonable. Refusing to give any range at all usually means the number is uncomfortable.
- No questions about your line
- A supplier who pitches for ten minutes without asking what you run is selling a machine, not solving a problem.
- Every answer is yes
- No machine fits every application. A vendor who never says 'that is outside our window' has not understood the application or is not telling you.
- Vague answers about service coverage
- Ask where the nearest technician is based. Hesitation here predicts your downtime experience.
After the show: turning a stack of notes into a project
The two weeks after PACK EXPO decide whether the trip produced a project or a folder of brochures. Most of the value leaks out here.
Write up your notes on the flight home, while you can still tell the booths apart. Four days of machines blur faster than anyone expects, and the detail you lose is always the one that mattered — which vendor said what about your case size.
Narrow to a shortlist of three before you start asking for quotes. Comparing eight proposals is not diligence; it is a way to avoid deciding. Three suppliers who understood your line will produce more useful documents than eight who received the same email.
Then ask each of the three for the same thing: a scoped proposal against your actual numbers, with installation and integration broken out. Proposals that are not directly comparable are the main reason automation projects stall in procurement.
- Within 48 hours
- Write up notes per vendor while the details are fresh. Include what they said about your specific case size and rate.
- Within two weeks
- Shortlist to three and request scoped proposals with the same line items, so they can be compared on something other than the headline number.
- Before you commit
- Take the reference call. Ask the reference about service response and changeover, not about the purchase.
PACK EXPO buyer questions, answered
About this guide
Written by the engineering team at Odecopack USA, a FANUC Authorized System Integrator in Hockley, Texas, with 30+ years in end-of-line packaging automation. We have exhibited at PACK EXPO since 2021. Specs quoted are our own published figures; show registration and schedules are PMMI's, so confirm them on the official site.
