Schneider Packaging Equipment Co. Inc., which makes case packing, sealing, and palletizing equipment for consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, said today it has opened a training lab where customers can learn to use the company's material handling equipment before installing it in their own facilities.

Visitors to the Brewerton, N.Y.-based Schneider's upstate headquarters can choose from courses on topics such as Schneider and FANUC robotics; pallet-generation software; troubleshooting programmable logic controllers (PLCs); and an introduction to servo motors, Schneider said.

Schneider will also use the lab to train employees and certify technicians on features such as a miniature robotic palletizing cell.

The program allows customers to take classroom courses and get hands-on experience with complex technologies without the risk of slowing down their production lines by deploying unfamiliar equipment, Jim Kent, Schneider's director of aftermarket services, said in a statement.