Marchesini Group, the giant of the machinery of packaging, adopts a business model of personalized production thanks to the 3D printing of Stratasys

Marchesini Group SpA .  is an Italian world leader in the manufacture of automated packaging machinery that supplies equipment to some of the largest brands in the pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic sectors. As one of Stratasys’ core customers   in Europe, the company today explains how it has adopted a fully customized production business model to meet the needs of the international packaging industry with its battery of industrial-grade Stratasys 3D printers.

Based in Pianoro, Italy, the Marchesini Group has a dedicated 3D printing infrastructure consisting of ten Stratasys production 3D printers with FDM technology, one Fortus 900mc  wide format printer  ,  four  Fortus 450mc  and five F270 systems  , as well as two 3D printers. with multiple PolyJet materials  . The technology is used throughout the design, development and manufacturing process of the cartoning machines, which are the company’s flagship product, as well as many other packaging lines. Each machine is tailored to a specific industry or a specific customer’s production process, which is essential to ensure optimum efficiency and performance in the field.

“At Marchesini Group our premise is” to make the extraordinary habitual “, which means that we tackle complex and fully customized projects almost daily,” says Mirko Fortunati, responsible for the coordination of mechanical workshops at the Marchesini Group. “However, the production of complex, custom parts using traditional manufacturing methods has proven to be extremely costly and time consuming, making it no longer suitable for the growing needs of today’s packaging industry.”

“Stratasys additive manufacturing has enabled us to overcome these problems and adopt a customized production model, something that has been fundamental to our business,” he continues. “The integration of industrial-grade FDM 3D printers into our production process has allowed us to dramatically reduce parts manufacturing lead times, which have gone from several weeks to just a few days. Plus, we can cost-effectively produce the exact number of parts we need without costly tools or machining. Thanks to this on-demand production capacity, our engineers can take advantage of the greater freedom of design that 3D printing offers and this has allowed the Marchesini Group to offer higher quality results to our clients. ”

It should be noted that this on-demand production capacity also extends to the maintenance and repair areas. For its packaging machines installed in customer centers around the world, the company can quickly and cheaply 3D print custom replacement parts on demand without requiring a minimum order. This not only enables the Marchesini Group to deliver spare parts to customers in record time, but also eliminates the need for costly parts storage facilities.

Improve machinery performance for customers

The team has 3D printed thousands of functional parts and components for its packaging machines,  including protective housings, cable support systems, and junction boxes, to name a few. These applications are especially important for the group’s robotic packaging systems, in which all the components are essential to guarantee the robot’s agility, precision and speed of movement. This is an area where high performance 3D printing materials have made a big difference.

“Using strong thermoplastics like FDM Nylon 12CF filament   or   Stratasys ULTEM ™ 9085 resin instead of traditionally machined metal components has allowed us to reduce the weight of some parts by at least 30%,” says Fortunati. “This not only increases the movement speed and productivity of the robot for our customers, but also decreases the degradation rate. These 3D printing materials also meet specific industry regulations, allowing us to extend this technology to a greater number of production applications and to offer our customers more innovative products. ”

Marchesini Group is also using Stratasys PolyJet technology to produce parts and components for applications that require the combination of two or more materials. “A great example of this technology is the production of holding clips, designed to handle lightweight items like brochures or smaller containers. Thanks to advanced multi-material 3D printing capabilities, we can produce complex designs that combine strong materials with rubber-like materials in a single print, something that traditionally would have required multiple long and costly processes, ”adds Fortunati.

Stratasys 3D printers from Marchesini Group’s additive manufacturing department operate uninterrupted.

Fortunati concludes: ”We can affirm that additive manufacturing is a fundamental component of the production of the Marchesini Group. In 2019 alone, we recorded a total of 22,480 hours of operation of our 3D printing equipment with FDM technology, which is equivalent to almost 15 hours a day. On our two PolyJet 3D printers we record a total of 1,700 hours of operation, the equivalent of 8 hours a day. We are confident that these numbers will be even higher in the future as we expand these technologies to all of our design and production processes. ”