From naked products to case packing" promises Italian specialist CT Pack, for customers who are primarily large-scale producers in bakery confectionery, and ice cream.
Now think about the variety of product formats, counts, sizes, and flavors and all the different packing styles, compounded by marketing promotions, supermarket specials and seasonal variations and you soon realize what broad range of demands CT Pack must cover for its important customers.
As a result, to manage this product variety, end users demand extreme flexibility from their machine suppliers, they want machines and lines that can adapt to a wide variety of profiles and do so quickly, easily and with minimal downtime.
Multi-format capabilities
“CT Pack was founded in 1991 with the aim of providing horizontal primary wrapping and end-of-line packaging solutions for a variety of markets”, explains Alberto Bonazza, Sales Director. The company merges the capabilities of leading firms in the specific fields of distribution and feeding systems, horizontal primary wrapping, and flexible end-of-line solutions. With a total of 65 years of experience, CT Pack represents a consolidated source for equipment and experience in the supply of turn-key solutions to the food industry.
“The strength of our company,” he continues, “is its ability to manufacture complete turn-key solutions that can handle naked products to case packing… and everything in between. And to address the needs of modern producers, these solutions must exhibit maximum flexibility, efficiency, and reliability, which is why we rely on technology providers like Rockwell Automation, who can give us the agility and digital capabilities our customers demand.”
Plastic reduction
This agility is being called into play more and more across the markets and customers CT Pack serves, as many look to reduce their use of plastic as a primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging material.
“The majority of our customers are moving over to using paper film for their packaging media,” Bonazza explains, “and we must deliver the capabilities to handle this – not just on our new machines, but by retrofitting older machines too. There are a lot of mechanical modifications to be made, but an agile automation infrastructure is just as important towards making this process simpler and faster to achieve, especially in the machines already in the field.”
“At CT Pack, sustainability is a way of thinking for our machines too,” Bonazza adds. “We start at the design phase, by reducing the quantity of material in our products and by reducing the energy consumption of our equipment. Indeed, we are already ISO14001 certified, with ISO45001 certification in progress and expected in May 2023.”
Remote connectivity
Another element of the flexibility offering, thanks to its use of digitalized solutions, is the enhanced connectivity offered by CT Pack. “We can now service all our machines using Smart Glasses,” Bonazza explains. “Our systems are fully connected, so we can provide remote access, troubleshooting and support. Indeed, we are already analyzing information relevant to efficiency, functionality, and component wear and this is helping us to boost customer OEE, while also cutting downtime and increasing the overall life of our solutions. Rockwell Automation is, of course, a big help in making this a reality, providing an exceptional variety of hardware and software packages to manage these very important after-sales activities.”
None of this would have been possible without a robust approach to cybersecurity. “Thanks to its attention to cybersecurity with the new Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk® Remote Access™ solution, we can now comply with the IT security rules imposed by our customers and introduce remote access to applications where before it would not have been possible. This capability allows us to support a broader spread of customers and applications quickly and decisively!
“CT Pack works very closely with Rockwell Automation across many facets of its operations,” Bonazza concludes, “from application development and understanding the needs of customers, through global coverage for spares and support, and onto the development and deployment of new products and technologies. These not only give us a lead in the market in terms of capabilities, but looking to the future, we will be using advanced analytics for next-generation solutions that will reduce downtime even further and boost the operational life of our machines. The customer wins at every stage!”
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