Kickstart: 'WTF' (what's the future) at NPE

When Michael Cicco, president of Fanuc America Corp., asks you something along the lines of "WTF," he's not cursing at you. Instead, those three letters are asking: What's the future?

During a keynote address to kick off NPE2024 in Orlando, Fla., on May 6 — the first keynote for the largest plastics trade show in the Americas — Cicco said he and other business leaders spend a lot of time thinking about what a future industry will look like.

Foremost on his mind? Workforce.

"We, as manufacturers, need to keep hiring people, and we can't because of the fact that there's not enough people out there," he said. "Jobs keep opening up; there's not enough people to fill them."

Plastics News' Jim Johnson writes that Cicco told NPE attendees that 2.4 million manufacturing jobs in the United States could go unfilled by 2030. That accounts for not only retirements but also new job growth over time.

The solution, he says, is not just found in automation but through a holistic approach that includes schools, manufacturers and technology providers working together to make manufacturing a desired job.

You can catch up on all the NPE2024 news by downloading a free digital copy of today's show daily here.

Boston-based Grillo's Pickles stands out because its products are sold only fresh and refrigerated, not alongside shelf-stable competitors. It also has stood out because its plastic packaging had a difficult lid that had the tendency to be hard to open without spilling brine everywhere.

So Grillo's has redesigned its closure and now is being offered with a twist-off lid — but still in the familiar plastic container. It introduced the change on its social media pages. It hasn't been easy, though. Eddie Andre, head of branding for Grillo's, told website The Takeout in 2023 that the company had been researching a solution for seven years.

But the pickle maker has no intention of swapping plastic for glass. It picked plastic in the first place because it was easier to work with for a small company just transitioning to a brick-and-mortar operation.

"Back in the day, glass was too expensive … so we were looking at a few different things: cost, weight and just, like, logistically how we could do it," Andre said. "We made a relationship with a packing store that sold to a lot of Asian restaurants all their supplies, for takeout trays and wonton soup jars. And that's what we started with."

The Society of Plastics Engineers' thermoforming division is trying to free up its members' schedules in the fall by moving its annual conference to the spring.

"Autumn has become a very crowded space for plastics industry events," Ed Probst, SPE thermoforming division chair, said in a news release. "Exhibitors and attendees were forced to make difficult decisions about where they spent their time and budgets during a short two-month period."

So the division's next show will be May 19-21, 2025, in Atlanta. That show will mark the 30th annual conference for SPE thermoformers and will have the theme of "Navigating the Future, Honoring the Past."