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Batch production helps company clean up


The shelves of any supermarket are full of personal and household cleaning products, comprised of different solutions and characterised by specific active ingredients. Such solutions are only usually created after lengthy studies, which are carried out not only to identify the ideal composition, but also to determine and control the sequence in which they are mixed and the best possible methods to achieve this.

In most cases, as they are chemical substances, it is necessary to mix them in the correct order, avoiding combinations that could trigger uncontrollable reactions. This is a very delicate task, further complicated by the need to add fragrances or colouring agents. These are problems which Antonio Campri, detergent production manager at Deco, is well aware of, thanks to his twenty years’ experience in the Ravenna Group. The company, based in Italy, is continually growing, to the point that, over the last ten years, turnover has increased by 70%. In fact, from its Bagnacavallo site alone,
35 million packages are produced every year, not to mention the Scala branded products from the Castrocielo plant, in the province of Frosinone. This means that on average, an Italian opens a product manufactured at the Deco factory every five minutes.

The Bagnacavallo plant, which produces 35 million products each year
Commensurate rates of production cannot be supported by traditional systems. For this reason, Deco chose to automate the production process by adopting customised software. Although this choice improved the company’s productivity, it progressively showed its limitations. Eventually, it was therefore decided to abandon the customised-software route, in favour of adopting a new standard for batch production, which was virtually personnel free and able to handle all the production and warehousing phases automatically.

Rockwell Automation was chosen to help make the changes. Campri explains that this decision was dictated by a number of factors, not least the relationship of collaboration and trust established with Sapi, the system integrator, which has been collaborating for years on the automation of the Deco plants; indeed, the company welcomed the proposal to use our FactoryTalk View, FactoryTalk Batch and Archiver solutions. “Deco has always offered a high level of quality,” emphasises Campri, “and, in order to remain at the top, we use the most innovative technologies.”

“Deco has always offered a high level of quality and, in order to remain at the top, we use the most innovative technologies.” Antonio Campri, detergent production manager, Deco
“This is also because the previous product had reached an unacceptable level of personnal input when it came to even partial modifications, and they required a series of extremely specific competences, making operations too complex in a plant as dynamic as Bagnacavallo,” adds Antonio Lanfredini, Sapi technical director.

Another factor that swayed the decision was Rockwell Automation’s ability to offer products that are: regularly enhanced by new releases; able to perform state-of-the-art operations in batch production; and, most importantly, address ISA88 standards and certifications.
“In reality,” admits Campri, “the checks on the mixing process are carried out on all the raw materials that could affect the quality of the product, but a small part of the dosage remains the responsibility of personnel. This was because of the absolute personalisation of the products on the market – in some cases, in 10,000kg of detergent only 15g of colour are added. In terms of quantity this is an insignificant percentage, but is indispensable for production.”
Campri continues: “We use over 300 checks, in addition to the 110 that are controlled automatically by the system. For this reason it would be too costly to install all the engineering systems to add them automatically.” Additives are therefore introduced manually, but the whole operation is co-ordinated straight from software.

For the last two years, with the support of Sapi and Rockwell Automation, Deco has been using a new standard for batch production without the need for personnel
The whole process, except for the manual doses, is managed from the control room, where the server has been installed and connected to the two industrial PCs. The network chosen will be able to support any future development and is used for the management of the 170 valves and motors, as well as for the transmission of information from the sensors. However EtherNet/IP is used for the exchange of data.

The new solution complies with the ISA88 standards and certifications imposed by international bodies
The decision to use Ethernet offers many positive implications for all Deco’s production, including the use of plant intelligence. In fact, a lot of information is already being exchanged between the production and the management levels, taking advantage of the new communication possibilities. The next step will be to gather and process all the production data automatically, providing structured information to management and to personnel working with the system on a daily basis. Further boosts in production are also envisaged thanks to the capacity of FactoryTalk View. It is already able to manage up to three different production runs in parallel, helping towards maximising the productivity of the whole plant. Compared with the previous system, production has increased by 35% and the quality of the products has also been raised further.

All these factors enable Deco personnel to manage hundreds of products by simply bringing up the formulae on the PC, and letting the system automatically add the single components in the correct order and with all the necessary checks on speed, time and mixing temperature. For this task Deco uses one of our SLC 500 PLCs to handle 600 digital and analogue I/Os. By taking advantage of the best automation systems available today, it is possible to optimise the production system to create products that satisfy the market’s need for a massive array of cleaning products.