INDUSTRY - Re-starting with packaging
An out-of-the-o Digitalization of machines, flexible and automated format change, remote management and control of production: these are the key aspects of the American consignment successfully accomplished by Ronchi Mario SpA. Stefano Lavorini
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o achieve something “exceptional”, you always need to set your eye on an unattainable goal ... This seems to be the correct key to understanding the scope and value of the project completed by Ronchi Mario SpA for one of the most important American multinationals in the detergency and personal care sector. It took the Gessate based company 3 years of work, the construction of a new factory and the hiring of a group of twenty-five people to fulfil a very particular order: that is, to create a series of orientation-, filling- capping and labeling lines for bottles, partly studied and designed by the customer themselves, and intended to “populate” a factory in the USA, built from scratch. As Cesare and Gianmario Ronchi, owners of the company confirm to us in one voice «From the constructive point of view the work is finished and all the machines have been delivered and are in production. Both in terms of timing and functionality, we responded positively to what was established. Only the last phase of the project needs to be completed, that is, the training of staff on site, entirely made up of new workers, not yet autonomous in managing production. For this purpose, starting from last year, we have transferred our people to the place».
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A remarkable result, which explains only in part how it is possible to have a customer who is not only satisfied, but that also intends to install the same type of packaging lines for liquid products in other factories ... What were the conditions on which you built the American project? This type of agreement is an example of what we call partnerships with the customer. It is evident that the latter put their faith us, but they certainly did not do so sight unseen. Our reputation as a leading player on the American market and the mutual knowledge built up over the years was decisive in guiding the choice. Before deciding whether to assign the order to us, there was, however, a preliminary study phase lasting more than a year and a half, during which the managers of the multinational company verified our way of working in the field. For our company, accepting such an ambitious order has meant taking on a big commitment, both in organizational terms and in terms of research and technological development. Even before receiving the final go-ahead from the customer, for example, we started building a new “Zero Emission” warehouse not far from the historic site, speeding up on the idea that it was in the air to increase our production capacity. We built a “green building” in record time, equipped with a photovoltaic system, rainwater recovery, heating system with heat pumps ... But the most ambitious challenge was the technological one. In fact, we took on the construction of a new bottle unscrambler starting from an existing project, conceived and studied by the customer exclusively “on paper”. As was foreseeable, the transition from design
to practical implementation required a considerable effort of implementation, development and improvement. During operations, numerous adjustments and modifications were necessary, as is normal for a contract of such complexity. And in this sense, our skills have made a difference. The intellectual property of the machines (of which two versions exist) belongs to the customer, with whom we have worked in close collaboration, but as manufacturers, we are proud to have been able to proactively contribute to the evolution of the project. On a technical level, what are the specific characteristics of the machines you have made? The main feature of this new system, which starts from the unscrambler and arrives at the palletizer, passing through the filler/capper, the labeler, the case packer, and which uses bottles and caps and labels of various sizes and types, is flexibility, much higher than that of traditional lines. The peculiar advantage offered by the project is the functionality of the format change, which can be carried out with extreme rapidity and
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22/10/20 11:16
