Cama combines with ABB’s robotics teams, delivering key machinery line productivity gains

June 1, 2024

20 3 minutes read

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The Italian-based Cama equipment group has reported a key success in an automation collaboration with B&R, part of ABB, for the development of advanced industry solutions, including for the confectionery sector, writes Neill Barston.

As our title has previously reported, the company has made a significant investment in its recently created headquarters near Milan, which has seen major strides in the development of its machinery across the food and drink industry.

Since its foundation in the early 1980s, Cama has cemented its place as a key provider of secondary packaging equipment, having pursued a policy of investing 5% of its annual turnover in technology; with its industry partner B&R having also produced technology since 1979, specialising in robotics, automation and software.

According to Cama, the two companies combined knowledge has delivered a strong level of innovation for their respective operations, with a recent press event at its headquarters showcasing an enhanced version of its MTL Monoblock Top Loading system. This is set to be given a major showcase at the upcoming Pack Expo event in Chicago, between 3-6 November.

“Finding the right partners is no mean feat,” explains Cama CEO Daniele Bellante, “because you need to share the same values and objectives. Sustainability is our watchword at Cama. Not so much in terms of environmental sustainability, as we don’t produce any polluting emissions and we’re not energy-intensive, but rather sustainability in terms of durability. We offer added value by perpetuating shared values over time, and this requires a strong focus on people. At Cama we produce machines, but we also produce people: investing in our personnel to sustain the company over time. This is the only way to consolidate market leadership. It is people who make the difference, and all partnerships are established with people”.

“With B&R, we seem to have found a winning solution: an ergonomic, flexible and modular machine designed to integrate the MTL Monoblock Top Loading system; this latest-generation equipment features a transparent guards for maximum visibility and optimal hygiene. Intuitiveness is a key design pillar: this is fundamental because the product’s target markets have diverse skills and, potentially, a high staff turnover.

“This is a very interesting and complex solution” explains Cama Sales Group Director, Alessandro Rocca. “It also makes use of augmented reality to access maintenance, changeover and spare parts, which can be ordered directly via a tablet, also enabling predictive maintenance. As a result, this solution requires less human intervention, thereby reducing the potential for human error. Remarkably, this solution also saves time, cutting the changeover time from 30 to 12 minutes! Our technologies offer real added value and our approach is holistic and customer-focused. This means that we pay great attention to our customers’ needs.”

As the company added, with the assistance of B&R’s magnetic track system, the MTL top loading system has been uprated to enable delivery of a monoblock which can serve three or more upstream feeds for similar products with different synchronisations.

According to Cama, this has delivered a reported increase in productivity with a reduced footprint. The solution allows to decouple the process stations, optimising the flow of products and cycle times; processing times were also optimised and the control panel was simplified, making commissioning and maintenance quicker and easier.

In addition, Wlady Martino, B&R Global Industry Manager, Packaging, explained the tests in developing the enhanced system, which the company believes will have a notable impact within the industry.

He said: “The challenge was the high throughput and the distance that the products have to travel –up to 14 metres. In this sense, speed and dynamics become really important. We proposed ACOPOStrak in this case for a number of reasons: it is an extremely high-performance magnetic shuttle solution: each shuttle can reach a speed of 4 m/s and an acceleration of 50 m/s2. The system is modular which encourages machine scalability; it also has a clean design enabling easy maintenance with tool-free shuttle removal. To achieve the customer’s objectives, we used simulation, native to the B&R programming system, to optimise the layout, the number of shuttles and the work cycle. At this stage, the customer can make any changes even before the hardware is available. So, we have what we call a “co-creation” process. Impressively, the simulation delivers a result that match the real behaviour on the final hardware. The co-creation process is made possible by combining a variety of skills and that is why, in the end, it really is the people who make the difference.

Annalisa Bellante, Vice President of Cama confirms this: “We have always tried to stay one step ahead, with a large R&D team of young people. We have a holistic view of work, which enables us to be innovative in terms of our products, with a focus on the environment (we engineer increasingly sustainable packaging) and welfare policies. We form relationships with our suppliers based on ethics and we care about corporate social responsibility, investing in society, seeing a return in the local area. Corporate governance involves taking global action and keeping a local focus, with an emphasis on gender equality. This is our way of working and it provides the framework against which we choose our partners.”