Over the past few years, packaging has become a source of competitive differentiation for many companies, offering everything from food products, office products and consumer products, which all require packaging. Packages have developed from being merely ways to deliver a product to being part of the product itself. The explosion of new products and increasing customer expectations requires OEMs to provide better flexibility, openness and performance for their manufacturing and production customers. Maximizing machine productivity and performance is imperative to success and is driving OEMs to adopt and invest in the latest technologies that can meet their customers' challenges. This white paper discusses the background and recent trends that have led to the need for integrated motion control in packaging machines and how they deliver value in their applications.