82 Business View Magazine - October 2016
to communicate with its own machinery and for the
machines, themselves, to interact with one another
up and down the supply chain. “We’ve always allowed,
and had the ability to give, all kinds of information
based on every single status that happens to our ma-
chines,” says Dow. “Since about 2007-08, with the
launch of the Panther P8, we’ve had all this ability over
the internet, and Ethernet/IP, and Modbus/TCP, and
TCP/IP, and other networks that we communicate over,
to give our customers all this information. Meanwhile,
we’re getting to a point where we’re going to be offer-
ing the next generation of communication, increasing
our speeds, and creating even more functionality in
our system to apply more labels in less time, and al-
lowing a single line to do more throughput.”
In addition, because Panther systems have error re-
porting and recommended solutions either on a sys-
tem display, or right within the system, itself, Dow says
that “most operators can solve just about any problem
that comes up.” However, if they can’t, the company of-
fers a 24/7 phone support. “This is something where
we’ve always stood out differently from our competi-
tion; we were the first ones to go down this path,” he
continues. “We give the operator the ability to be the
first line of defense and then we have 24/7 support at
no cost to the customer for the life of the machine. So,
even the systems that we have out there that are 16
years old, we still offer 24/7 support and we still sup-
port the components on those systems.”
Because of Panther’s combination of innovative en-
gineering, precise manufacturing, and excellent cus-
tomer support, Dow says the company has prospered
largely through word-of-mouth, and with the aid of a
few strong partners and integrators that have carried
its banner and helped to get the company to where it
is today. In addition, Panther has always participated
in the industry’s largest trade shows: the PACK EXPO
put on by the Association for Packaging and Process-
