Perfetti Van Melle, founded in 1946 in Lainate (Milan), is nowadays among the top four chewing gum and sweets producers in the world in over 150 countries. The mission is to develop and create innovative products with the lowest possible environmental impact. Perfetti Van Melle’s need is to modernize the production system accordingly to Industry 4.0 principles by integrating some new production technologies to improve: 

• Working conditions 
• Create new business models 
• Increase not only productivity, but also quality

The new packaging line was complex and avant-garde in various aspects: 

• Sustainability
• The need for an integrated process for the formation of packaging on the existing line 
• Ergonomics, with operating stations that optimize the flow management
• The almost total absence of product waste
• High quality (the use of x-rays for the detection of metals and other materials and collection of data)
• Process parameters carried out in real time

Along with Marchiani (company operating in Industrial Automation), Perfetti studied both the digital integration of all the collection items and its upstream and downstream interfacing with company management system, warehouse management system (WMS), labeling and traceability. The further exploitation of the potential of an innovative Industrial Edge solution, both using ready to use applications and integrating open source software to meet all the customer requirements, made it possible to intervene in real time and reach a high level of productivity and efficiency of the resources and materials used.