Digital transformation paths

When a world-renowned converter and automatic machine builder with over 170 years of history meets a young hi-tech startup, a win-win collaboration is born, which gives rise to a new service proposal. Open innovation and servitization are the key factors of a change, which allows machine users to improve productivity and quality. Camillo Ghelfi and Marco Bressanello, respectively CEO of 40Factory and Goglio Innovation Engineer Manager, tell us about it.

An “open” innovation model is a strategic and cultural approach, according to which companies, in order to create more value and compete better on the market, choose to use not only internal resources, but also ideas, solutions, tools and technological skills that come from outside.This is the context in which is moving 40Factory, a hi-tech startup born in 2018, focused on the development of Industrial IoT solutions, able to support companies in a path of digital transformation, allowing them to access new business models to offer more efficient and reliable products.

A successful example of this is the work done in Goglio …

An exemplary case

The Goglio Group, founded in 1850, designs, develops and manufactures complete packaging systems, with an offer that consists of flexible packaging, rigid plastic accessories such as valves and nozzles, machines and services for every packaging need. Market leader in the coffee, tomato and fruit pulp sectors, but also in industrial products such as plastic granules, today Goglio has over 1,800 employees and a turnover of over 370 million Euros.

The path of competitiveness follows a double track: that of product evolution and that of obsessive research of process efficiency. In both cases, Goglio believed that the winning weapon was the digital transformation: a transformation that has also permeated the products, which from mechanics have become more and more mechatronic and computerized.

Although Goglio’s machines have always distinguished themselves for the level of technological innovation and high performance, today this is no longer enough to remain competitive and the company, for some years now, has decided to focus on service innovation. Basic condition for the provision of advanced services is the connection of the machines to the manufacturer’s cloud platform, through the so-called Industrial Internet of Things.

Marco Bressanello, Innovation Engineering Manager of Goglio’s Machinery Division, speaks about the reasons and perspectives opened by this choice.

«The H24 connection allows a continuous flow of data to be received from the machines, useful both for the customer and the manufacturer: the former will be more interested in the production volumes of each shift or in the overall performance of the lines, the latter will be interested in those technical data that allow them to review the design of the machines to improve their reliability and TCO (total cost of ownership). Our choice initially fell on a commercial platform which, however, soon turned out not to be perfectly functional to the needs of the application. Goglio then decided to develop a new platform, calling 40Factory to collaborate, which allowed us to exploit the best available technologies to shape them to our needs».

Mid 2019 saw the creation of Goglio MIND, completely overhauled in terms of graphics and features developed.

«The secret of MIND is to start from customers’ needs and constantly enrich the platform with new services. One of the latest possibilities offered is the remote pre-delivery testing of the machine. In the Covid era, customer mobility is reduced and in many cases even prevented. Mind offers the possibility to connect to the platform through the browser and follow the testing of your machine interacting in real time with Goglio’s testers. 4 cameras are connected to Mind at the same time, and the customer, besides seeing the data of speed, production time, produced packs and rejects, can choose the image he wants to follow, as if he was watching a Formula 1 Grand Prix».

The era of instinct and subjective evaluations, on the other hand, is over and today decisions are data-driven, i.e. made on the basis of real data.

«The flow of data that comes out from the machines and that is stored on Mind constitutes a base that is growing as the number of connected machines increases».

In practice, from this data lake we extract the information necessary to allow the progressive transition from traditional to predictive maintenance.

«The available data are therefore shared between manufacturer and customer - continues Bressanello - always ensuring both an objective view of the phenomena. Moreover, thanks to the data connection, the manufacturer is able to offer customers services with increasing added value. Among these, the most significant is undoubtedly the one defined “pay per performance”, in which the customer does not pay for the possession of the production line, but for the volumes of product that the line is actually able to produce».

Goglio MIND: how it works and what it offers

Let’s go into the architecture and functionality of the platform developed by Goglio, as well as the resulting benefits for end users.

Bressanello carries on by tracing the contours of this innovation.

«For the digital services offered to accompany the packaging lines built by Goglio in the Zeccone (PV) plant, we have collaborated with 40Factory since 2019: together it has been possible to enhance the Mind platform, enriching it with new value-added services for users.

Industrial IoT’s solution, based on Cloud Microsoft Azure, consists of a web app: with a few clicks you can access the entire fleet of Goglio machines in the world, monitor their operating status, analyze the trend of some important KPIs (key performance indicators), such as OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) and production rates, but also perform an in-depth analysis of machine downtime based on the Pareto diagram and check the quality of the finished product.

But there is more: the solution enables the storage of the telemetry data streaming (temperatures, voltages, motor absorption, recipe parameters, etc...) coming from the machine in a Data Lake optimized to handle this function: starting from the collected data you can perform advanced analysis on the efficiency and the correct regulation status of the machine, as well as enabling predictive maintenance logics».

According to what the manager says, «the performance of the lines are kept under constant control by Goglio’s technicians, and as soon as an anomaly is found, we intervene according to the service contract with the user: from a simple informative phone call to the remote support through computer or audio/video augmented reality instruments. In the cases in which it is foreseen, it is also organized the prompt sending of a technician for the intervention on site».

The machines are connected to the platform through a small box installed in the electrical panel, called field agent. Here the data flows directly from the machine’s control plc and undergoes a first processing through multi-level edge calculation methodologies. The result is an optimized data stream, ready to be transferred to the cloud where they are processed.

«Video and contextual data can be recorded and archived in a special section of the app: their analysis allows the development of new features to improve the performance of the lines. The efficiency is monitored by the user or, even better, by the manufacturer remotely. This option has proved to be fundamental in times of pandemic, but we think it will remain in our habits even when we are back to normal.

Finally, the collection of production data allows us to study the correlations between the machine settings and the characteristics of the packaging material used. Since Goglio produces the films and builds the machines, the control of both components is fundamental for seeking the conditions that maximize the overall efficiency of the packaging process».

Goglio MIND BOT: the digital assistant that informs

The platform is enriched by a virtual assistant, a BOT, able to communicate in natural language with users through different channels, such as Telegram or web chat, so that machine data, KPIs and production reports can be accessed intuitively and immediately.

«Users, authenticated through a fast and secure procedure - explains Bressanello - can also ask complex questions to the virtual assistant such as “How has production changed regarding accepted pieces and rejects, week by week specifying the periods September, October, November for lines l01, l02 and l03?”. In a few seconds, the answer is provided in the form of a graph that can be consulted directly from a smartphone. Not only that: the BOT is able to send push notifications when a particular critical event occurs, such as a downtime or the drop in efficiency below a certain threshold. In addition, users can activate the receiver of complete production reports, for example at the end of each shift».

HMI UX/I: a human-friendly interface

The innovation process at Goglio did not stop at the development of data driven solutions; in an integrated digitization perspective, the company decided to revolutionize the human-machine interface, improving its interaction and usability. Together with the UI/UX design specialists of 40Factory, an HMI inspired by modern paradigms, based on the world of web and APP, has been re-designed, featuring a limited number of pages, intuitive and easily replicable on different models.

«The need to take such a step - underlines Bressanello - was born in the first place from the transformation of the labor market: we realized that, unlike in the past, the turnover of operators is much faster; furthermore it is increasingly difficult to find experienced operators who know the machine very well and the time to train new recruits is increasingly limited. Considering this state of affairs, we decided to re-engineer the HMI in innovative terms, in order to eliminate the “misunderstandings” between machine and operator, reducing errors and learning times; this also allowed us to make our machines immediately recognizable, in an effective branding operation. After all, the interface is the element of interaction with the machine and an HMI with attention to detail can only give further value to a product already excellent at the start, facilitating its use and improving the productivity of the plant».

In conclusion, results and perspectives

Summing up, by collecting the information offered by our interlocutors we can say that the available technologies evolve rapidly, and to integrate them in the correct way and be able to exploit them requires a considerable effort.

However, the advantage is clear: thanks to the use of these tools, the relationship between the manufacturer and the end customer changes profoundly, as they come to speak “the same language”. A language based on data and not on opinions, thus creating closer partnerships, with common goals more easily achievable.

Goglio believes that this is the right direction, even if the transition will be gradual, but it believes in a future where all machines, regardless of manufacturer and features, will be connected: in this way, interacting with platforms of this type, dialogue with a virtual assistant and having data and KPIs easily accessible to everyone for the entire machine life cycle will become an everyday feature.