Machines designed to treat customers’ products with the same care and attention they use for their production: This is the aim of Tecno Pack, a company specialized in packaging machines for all industrial sectors.

For over 30 years, Tecno Pack has been designing and building flow pack machines and automatic packaging systems for the food and non-food, pharmaceutical, and beverage industries. Thanks to an extensive range of agents and cooperators throughout the world, the company exports 70% of its production. In these years, the company worked with a large number of partners, including Bauli, Barilla, Fresenius Medical Care, Latte Trento, Bimbo, Chipita, Ferrero, Mauri, Kraf, Nestlè, Baxter, Baldi, GrissinBon, Pepsico, Vivartia, Sara Lee, Western Bakeries, Garuda Food, meeting the most different requirements with its modular and flexible packaging systems.

Under the banner of digitisation. Always among the first to trace the path of the sector, Tecno Pack continues the innovation of its packaging systems by increasing the digitisation of machines and plants, offering customers many advantages with limited investments. For years already, digitisation has been largely implemented for technologies involving a high level of automation, thanks  to establishment of deterministic ethernet or real-time networks (ethernet, ethernet IP etc.), which guarantee synchronism between axles, prompt response, centralised control, footprint limitation, reduction of wiring, and sharing of information. While in the past the exchange of information between devices of different manufacturers was very complex, today high tech systems are available with simplified interfaces, such as SQL Database and the OPC UA Standard. The new technologies provide simple and immediate information exchange with potentially all systems that share these tools. Focussing on the quality of information, hence, means to dramatically reduce development times and the possibility of errors. Specifically, a machine or plant operator opens to the outside world thanks to the coexistence of different types of networks, such as field (I/O LINK), automation (ethercat) and interface (ethernet/IP) networks, and the continuous exchange of information.

International standards. The use of international standards, which give way to customised and closed solutions, shared by the majority of suppliers of products and automation systems, has enormous repercussions both for manufacturers and the users of machines and plants, allowing a total and capillary control and leaving space for the new. In the near future, the possibilities offered by the Internet and data networks, thanks to the high bandwidths available, will allow the implementation of aids for operators and maintenance technicians; furthermore they will provide the possibility of real-time feed-back to the management on production or plant productivity, and create ideal trend profiles to be used for taking strategic decisions. The age of digitisation offers a variety of new possibilities for displaying the manuals and videos directly on the plant in standard format (HTML, PDF, AVI) and their continuous updating, may be with QR Codes directly on the machine. Augmented reality tools will be available to guide operators along format change-over and maintenance interventions, as well as for monitoring particularly critical plant areas. Furthermore, plant managers and maintenance engineers, as well as remote or telemonitoring assistance service, internal to the company or provided by the automation system supplier, will receive messages and alert signals on their mobile devices, so that real-time assistance can be provided for solving and preventing system failures. Real-time monitoring of characteristic machine parameters, for example, will allow to control the wear of components, by means of sensors or indirectly by monitoring power, torque or other significant deviations from standard values.

High-connectivity machines. A key issue of digitisation is the quality of connections. Firstly, they must be private, with safety devices that ensure the safe and reliable interconnection with the customer’s Corporate Network. Secure, to ensure customer’s perimeter protection with firewalls that provide full access controls. Complete, with equipment that establish VPN tunneling to cloud servers. Reliable, i.e. managed by providers that ensure continuous service and upgrades. For this reason the choice of the correct IT partner is a key issue, while very high sensitivity of the IT management to the risks of the interconnection of networks and field devices is a must. For Tecno Pack all this is not only the future, but already a reality. The FP100 Box Motion flowpack packaging machine, featuring Omron automation components and developed in co-operation with Bauli, is currently the state of the art of digitisation in the packaging sector. The Box Motion version is, at present, the fastest square motion, long seal type system on the market; it is the result of long research and investments. It features a quick change system and provides high production speeds (up to 230 packs/min), ensuring perfect seals and controlled atmosphere packaging. The aesthetic perfection of the pack is ensured also in the case of lateral gussets. Tecno Pack’s box motion sealing heads featuring a square movement provide unrivalled performance and versatility.