Choosing packaging machinery includes an assessment of technical capabilities, labor requirements, worker safety, maintainability, serviceability, reliability, ability to integrate into the packaging line, capital cost, floorspace, flexibility (change-over, materials, multiple products, etc.), energy requirements, quality of outgoing packages, qualifications (for food, pharmaceuticals, etc.), throughput, efficiency, productivity, ergonomics, return on investment, etc.

Packaging machinery can be:

purchased as standard, off-the-shelf equipment

purchased custom-made or custom-tailored to specific operations

manufactured or modified by in-house engineers and maintenance staff

Efforts at packaging line automation increasingly use programmable logic controllers and robotics.

Packaging machines may be of the following general types:

Accumulating and collating machines

Blister packs, skin packs and vacuum packaging machines

Bottle caps equipment, over-capping, lidding, closing, seaming and sealing machines

Box, case, tray, and carrier forming, packing, unpacking, closing, and sealing machines

Cartoning machines

Cleaning, sterilizing, cooling and drying machines

Coding, printing, marking, stamping, and imprinting machines

Converting machines

Conveyor belts, accumulating and related machines

Feeding, orienting, placing and related machines

Filling machines: handling dry, powdered, solid, liquid, gas, or viscous products

Inspecting: visual, sound, metal detecting, etc.

Label dispenser

Orienting, unscrambling machines

Package filling and closing machines

Palletizing, depalletizing, unit load assembly

Product identification: labeling, marking, etc.

Sealing machines: heat sealer or glue units

Slitting machines

Weighing machines: check weigher, multihead weigher

Wrapping machines: stretch wrapping, shrink wrap, banding

Form, fill and seal machines

Other specialty machinery: slitters, perforating, laser cutters, parts attachment, etc.