PFM Group is an international industrial group, which, since its foundation in 1964, has met all the flexible packaging requirements of the food and non-food, chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.
The company’s extensive technological portfolio includes horizontal and vertical form-fill-and-seal machines (HFFS/VFFS) machines, horizontal stand-up pouch machines and multi-head weighers as well as complete turnkey packaging lines with flexible wrapping materials for both the food and non-food industry.
Blue-chip customers
Its customer list reads like a ‘who’s who’ of blue-chip global companies, with many household brand names relying on its packaging technology for product presentation and protection. Vertical markets it supplies include baked goods, cheese, coffee, fruit & vegetables, meat, pasta, snacks, confectionery, pet food, pharma and wet wipes.
From the very beginning, PFM – a member of the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork – has worked constantly towards helping its customers achieve success and create opportunity for innovation, as well as helping them to encourage and make the most of people’s professional and personal skills.
According to Sergio Peracchi, Area Manager at PFM: “The strength of the PFM Group lies in its original technological ideas, in its perseverance to create new ones and its absolute determination to be always one step ahead."
Essential R&D
Indeed, the company deems research and development as an essential part of the process of creating new ideas and identifying the technical means to put an original idea into practice. PFM believes this function is crucial, so much so that the R&D department is run personally by the proprietors.
Key to its machines’ operational capabilities are speed, flexibility, quick-changeover and connectivity; with its customer demanding the ability to handle multiple products on single machines, in a wider range of batch sizes.
“Along with these capabilities, we must also consider reliability and user friendliness,” Peracchi explains, “which is why the automation solutions we deploy are essential.” For this reason, PFM Group is a big user of automation and information systems from Rockwell Automation.
“Alongside the comprehensive range of hardware products and their impressive capabilities, our engineers find the software easy to use. Our design and programming time is reduced, alongside the time it takes to test, and trouble shoot new ideas, all of this from a tightly integrated platform that offers us increased flexibility for future changes.
“Our customers gain smart-machine capabilities,” he concludes, “higher throughput, easier maintenance, including remote capabilities and reduced installation and training times.”
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