Page 8 - Machines+Italia+Vol+XIV+2022+Coping+with+the+Certainty+of+Uncertain+Times

WORKFORCE TRAINING
at Cavanna. “As a result, they are probably struggling more than the confectionery customers with retaining people, hiring, and training. It’s a big challenge in the workforce today.”
To overcome this challenge, Cavanna has strengthened its North American service team and recently implemented a customer portal that allows its clients to have immediate, tablet-based access to a support person. “They can click on their portal and go straight to com- municating from a tablet to one of our techs,” Kehrli said. “The tech will answer and see what the customer is looking at while standing in front of the machine. The tech can then issue instructions or, more so, can support them with computer programming diagnostics.”
At its headquarters in Italy and at AROL North America, it’s possible for AROL to disassemble parts of a machine and instruct a customer’s employees on its assembly. (Provided by AROL Group)
Cavanna has also gotten help from its U.S. industry trade group— the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies (referred to as PMMI, after its original Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute name)—which has a Certified Trainers Program consisting of a two-day workshop, an e-learning course, and a self-study program that gives professionals the tools they need to provide machinery and safety training to their fellow employees and customers, according to the group’s website. Kehrli summed it up, “Our guys get trained on how to educate people.”
Under service contracts, Kehrli’s trainers visit plants on a monthly or quarterly basis to train all of the new people. Cavanna and its clients have also implemented customer-owned video training. A plant manager can show the videos to new employees when and as often as needed. “It’s not cheap to do because these systems are complicated,” said Kehrli. “We hire videographers and editors to come in, then video the line with one of our trainers step by step by step so we help them with this revolving door.”
Riccardo Cavanna, president and lead strategist of Cavanna Packaging, is the 2022-2024 president of the trade organization
to which his company belongs, UCIMA, the Italian Association for Automatic Packing and Packaging (Baggiovara, Italy, www.ucima. it). According to UCIMA data reported in the online publication Confectionery Production, 2021 was a lucrative year for the Italian automatic packaging machinery sector, with revenue of 8.24 billion euros (which is on par with the U.S. dollar), a 5.5 percent increase from 2020’s results. This is especially notable considering that COVID 19-related supply chain issues and global shortages of raw materials hampered production.
Also noteworthy is that Italian manufacturers of automatic packag- ing machinery and manufacturing lines exported 78 percent of their production, representing 6.46 billion euros in foreign sales. North America is the No. 3 importer of Italian automatic packaging machin- ery and bought 828 million euros worth of machines in 2021. This represents a 13 percent year-over-year growth from 2020 to 2021, and follows a 6 percent increase year-over-year from 2019 to 2020. Finally, the United States topped the imports ranking of individual countries, with 756 million euros worth of Italian automatic packaging machinery reaching its ports in 2021. This represents a 13 percent increase year-over-year.
New Technology Requires New Training
Like Cavanna, Aidro Srl, (Taino, Italy, www.aidro.it) had employee training to do, but it was to teach them additive manufacturing (AM), a technology new to the company. Its pioneering efforts in AM led to new markets for Aidro and subsequent acquisition in 2021 by an American leader in manufacturing AM equipment, Desktop Metal.
Aidro (pronounced EYE-dro), experts in hydraulics and a member of the Italian Federation of Mechatronic Technologies and Components for Fluid Power, Power Transmission, Smart Automation, and Control of Industrial Products and Processes (Cinisello Balsamo, Italy, www.federtec.it), bought its first AM machine—also known as a 3D printer—in 2015. The company started using the new equipment to make prototypes out of plastics and polymers, as well as tooling and supports for conventional, subtractive manufacturing.
“When we introduced this new technology alongside the con- ventional manufacturing of hydraulic parts, the idea was to find new solutions to the problems where conventional manufacturing can’t reach the exact results required,” said Valeria Tirelli, co-CEO and president of Aidro. “But more and more, we understood the benefits and the potential of AM. We started to change our ideas and began to make functional parts. At that time, there was no other company in Italy using AM in the hydraulics or fluid power sector, so we were a kind of pioneer.”
The word “pioneer” is used a lot, but in Aidro’s case, it has a special meaning. The hydraulics industry in Italy is very conservative, with parts designed 70 years ago still in use, Tirelli noted. “With AM, we have the opportunity to change the shape and improve the performance of our parts,” she said. “So we were really amazed by this technology. We started to design with a new mentality.” The company
8 Volume XIV | www.machinesitalia.org