"Eaton has been a strategic and reliable partner that, in a short period of time, has enabled us to take advantage of the innovations of Industry 4.0 in order to face the new market challenges calmly while remaining competitive.“
Background
Turri F.lli S.r.l. is a point of excellence in the Italian business community that, since 1960, has been designing and building machines and systems for bakeries, pasta factories, patisseries and pizzerias. Over the years, the company has been able to develop a worldwide commercial presence, establishing itself in the field of baking thanks to the extreme reliability, versatility and user-friendliness of the solutions offered. The wide range of Turri products currently includes mixers, lifters, dividers, rounders, shapers, molders, automatic units, dough sheeters and pastry machines, all easily able to be coupled to create complete automatic production lines.
The company stands out for its attention to customers during every stage of the project: from development to production, from assembly to machine testing, for a complete cycle from the flour to the end product. The aim is to offer the latest generation of customized solutions that are capable of meeting specific needs and automating production cycles, thereby optimizing them.
Since Turri was founded the company has seen constant growth, further strengthened in the early 2000s by the acquisition of two leading Italian companies have that completed and enhanced the company's offering: Alaska S.r.l., a leader in the industrial refrigeration sector, and Victus S.r.l., which specializes in manufacturing ovens for bakeries, patisseries and pizzerias.
Challenge
Turri develops machinery for leading manufacturers and contract manufacturers in the pasta and bread-making sector. The company satisfies very high quality requirements and meets the challenges posed by the food industry of today, such as the need to sustain production cycles that are continuous yet also require variety and flexibility, including in extreme temperature conditions.
In the past, Turri specifically supplied one of the key players on the international market with a self-developed line for producing and processing large quantities of dough using complex multi-cylinder machines capable of working in cascade. Last year, the company then accepted a further challenge from this customer by responding to its need to automate its dough sheeters. These machines produce the dough for sandwich bread, making its texture more even and refined.
To optimize the 24-hour production cycle and ensure that the cycle was flexible, this meant the company had to offer the customer not only smart machines capable of managing production based on the recipe sent—taking into account the quantity and type of dough to be supplied—but also the ability to control and plan the production cycle remotely. Moreover, it was necessary to implement a competitive solution that is easy to install and straightforward to use at the same time.
Solution
Having always acknowledged the importance of a customer-oriented approach, Turri chose Eaton to offer its customer the required automation through an innovative and performing solution.
"We've collaborated with Eaton before and we appreciate the quality and reliability of its support. This is why we had no doubts about reconfirming our trust in them. Since we deal with large production volumes, working with competent and innovative partners is essential: If the machinery were to malfunction, for example, the economic losses would be considerable and this is a risk our customers cannot afford to take," said Andrea Saggioro, CEO of Turri f.lli S.r.l.
Eaton examined Turri's needs and developed a complete automated solution that would make it possible to support the customer in every stage of the process by offering them—partly thanks to collaborating with a specialized system integrator—a single point of contact from implementation to software management and support.
A system was therefore designed that sends the production batch and recipe to be processed to the Eaton HMI/PLC XV300. Based on the recipe obtained, the HMI/PLC then sets the various production line parameters, including hopper emptying speed, extrusion thickness, number of passes, roller rotation speed and belt conveyor speed. The process is then optimized by the advanced graphics of the HMI/PLC XV300, which enables operations to be loaded very quickly, even when dealing with detailed pages.
In the production line, the machine motors are controlled by sixty Eaton DE11 variable speed starters, connected in CAN bus. Along with the HMI/PLC, this gives the customer full control over thermal protection, number of working hours, absorbed current, speed, and consumption of each individual motor at all times.
The easy connectivity of the Eaton HMI/PLC XV300 made it possible to make all the operating parameters accessible to the company information system, as well as integrate the sheeting and molding line into the production management automation solution in accordance with the requirements of the Italian Industry 4.0 regulation.
"Among the features that have made the difference—and that Eaton offers as an integral part of its offering—the remote client with its latest generation human-machine interface stands out. This gives us a duplicate of the panel that works on the machine, which enables us to identify problems immediately and intervene promptly," continues Andrea Saggioro, CEO of Turri F.lli S.r.l.
Result
In a context that is increasingly dominated by production unpredictability and the need for optimization, Eaton's solutions have provided Turri with effective support in terms of digital transformation, which has resulted in specific benefits with regard to process and cost management.
Combined with the advantage of being able to offer the customer a "turnkey" solution that is fully managed at each stage, the predictive maintenance enabled by the XV300 from Eaton has given the project undisputed added value. Indeed, if problems occur, the central system software receives alerts that accurately indicate the fault: The maintenance technician can then work on the production line at the exact point, thus avoiding loss of time, unwanted machine downtimes and consequent repercussions from a financial point of view.
Furthermore, the data obtained from the machines has been essential for consumption analysis: For each production batch, for instance, it has been possible to accurately calculate the energy costs and then improve them where necessary.
"Eaton has been a strategic and reliable partner that, in a short period of time, has enabled us to take advantage of the innovations of Industry 4.0 in order to face the new market challenges calmly while remaining competitive," concludes Andrea Saggioro, CEO of Turri f.lli S.r.l.