Cedral Tassoni adopts Industry 4.0 criteria

Cedral Tassoni, the historic Brescia-based company renowned for the production of the famous Cedrata lime soda, recently announced investments of almost €1 million aimed at automating its entire production chain.

The investments, which were partly funded by the government’s Industry 4.0 plan, will involve the installation of fully-interconnected robots to perform all quality control and packaging operations and thereby enable the company to meet growing demand. The installation work began in November and will be completed within the first few months of 2018, increasing output to 200,000 pieces per day with minimal use of personnel.

One of the key aspects of the project is the installation of new-generation automated machines and systems for inspecting finished products and rejecting defective items with a very high level of precision. Another is the packaging line equipped with a new machine for inserting the product in clusters and a wrap-around packaging machine. These lines will be connected remotely to allow for immediate tele-service and will be equipped with sensors for predictive maintenance.

In the last three years Tassoni has seen its market share grow by 25% and plans to increase R&D investments to around 5-6% of turnover in the near future. The company’s next step will be to concentrate on logistics with the aim of achieving complete automation.