Every minute a bottling or packaging line sits idle is a hit to profitability. Studies estimate that downtime costs manufacturers as much as $50 billion annually, with packaging plants losing their productive capacity because of it. For executives, the math is staggering. A single line producing bottles can lose millions in product output over the course of just a few hours. And that doesn’t factor in the extra costs of overtime, rushed repairs, spoilage, missed delivery windows, and penalties.
Jeff Edwards, CEO and founder of Energy Control Systems (ECS), puts it plainly: “When a production line stops for any reason, it can be thousands of dollars a minute. With deferred production, you can never catch up. If they are running at near capacity and they lose production time, they can’t catch up. That impacts profitability, impacts shareholders and stakeholders, and it’s not good for anybody all around.”
The bottling and packaging industry often acknowledges downtime as a problem, but most stop at treating the symptoms. The deeper root causes are rarely explored to the extent they should be. “All they see is that the production has stopped. They don’t know why the production has stopped, they just know that it stopped,” Edwards says. “Those ‘little pieces’ are usually electronic. Industry data backs this up: the vast majority of downtime traces back to electrical and electronic disturbances.”
Edwards explained, “A transient voltage surge can reset a programmable logic controller. A power quality disturbance can corrupt a system’s software or lock up a control board. A spike can shorten the life of sensors or destroy a motor drive. And unlike a conveyor belt jam, which is quickly visible, diagnosing an electronic fault takes time, specialized expertise, and often replacement parts with long lead times. The downtime stretches on.”
Edwards says. “Not every C-suite executive is going to know what failed, but with a few questions, you get to know that the real culprit is often electronics.”
Volume magnifies the problem. A bottle of soft drink might cost only a few cents. “But when it’s 100,000 bottles of soft drink, and it goes on for three hours, you’re talking real money,” Edwards notes. Whether it’s soda, water, or tissue packaging, the scale of production makes even short stoppages costly.
Automation, robotics, and data-driven controls are making production faster and more sensitive. “As stuff gets more and more sensitive, you don’t have any choices,” Edwards says. “Companies must get ahead of this. You can’t wait for these problems to happen. You have to be proactive.”
That proactive stance is where Energy Control Systems has built its reputation. Since 1987, the company has focused on power quality solutions that address the invisible electrical problems eating away at reliability. Edwards emphasizes that their success comes from more than technology: “It all comes down to relationships. Having one of the best performing products on the market gave us a strong foundation, and from there, we were able to expand and grow through those connections.”
The strategy goes beyond selling hardware. It’s about educating clients, asking the right diagnostic questions, and helping plant leaders understand that downtime is not an inevitability of manufacturing; it is a solvable problem. ECS has invested in building surge suppression, harmonic mitigation, battery backup, and monitoring solutions that detect issues before they cascade into line stoppages. Just as importantly, they have built trust by training customers to understand the risks and take action before it’s too late.
For the bottling and packaging industry, the challenge is not simply to acknowledge downtime, but to rethink its cause. Mechanical failures may still occur, but the data and the experience of companies like ECS show that most problems begin with electrical and electronic vulnerabilities. Treating the surface issue without addressing the root only ensures repeat failures.
Downtime is a tax on profitability, reputation, and growth. The leaders who thrive will be those who shift the narrative from reaction to prevention. Edwards says, “This conversation is only going to get more important as technology rises. With new implementations on the production line, the problems are only going to go deeper. Companies must get ahead of this; it’s not something you can wait on.”