Unitech, a designer and manufacturer of end-of-line packaging automation, showcased its high-speed packaging conversion technology at PACK EXPO 2026 in Chicago that is engineered for manufacturers and commercial distributors of industrial stretch film. 

The Model T012 Automatic PreStretched Film Rewinder is an advanced converting system that processes master rolls of stretch film by running the material through servocontrolled rollers to achieve variable pre-stretch ratios. 

The machine automatically folds the edges of the film to reinforce roll borders against tearing before rewinding the material into smaller rolls for manual stretch wrapping of pallets, according to Unitech.

"You can set any of the parameters on the on the [machine interface] on how you want the film rewound," said Kristian Hulgard, the executive sales director for North America at MotionTech, which owns Unitech.  

By using the rewinder instead of a human worker to stretch film, distributors of stretch film achieve a more consistent quality job and save money and materials, he said.  

"[Users] save a lot of money [by doing] a more consistent quality job when they're wrapping their pallets or selling it to whoever's wrapping the pallets," he said.  

The Model T012 enables film converters to improve material yield, increase throughput and deliver rolls to end users as opposed to someone stretching the film manually, according to the company. 

"That effort for the operator doing it manually, eight hours a day, pallet after pallet, is not consistent. They cannot achieve the same force, and they use a lot more material than they should per pallet," said Rafael Minassian, the business development manager at MotionTech.  

Hulgard said their product also follows an industry-wide trend of accessibility in automation through its programming interface and price point.  

The company is also expanding to the U.S., which Hulgard said is also a reflection of larger trends. MotionTech recently established a regional operational base in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, aiming to support its North American portfolio. 

"We've been talking about this for years now in terms of the big trends that push automation in general. [The] labor shortage is not getting any smaller," he said. "Then in terms of tariffs and bringing technology into the U.S., MotionTech as a group has plans on local manufacturing in the near future."