Tetra Pak's classic cardboard packaging for milk, juice, and many other beverages is familiar to almost everyone. While these cartons demonstrate exceptional efficiency and durability in transportation and daily use, their manufacturing process places extremely stringent demands on production technology. Tetra Pak's R&D and technical team in Modena, Italy, innovatively incorporated Beckhoff's XTS magnetic drive flexible conveyor system into a new generation of capping machines for its cardboard packaging, successfully achieving three core objectives: high quality, high throughput, and high process flexibility. The system has been a resounding success, with Tetra Pak's pilot customers praising its reliability, high performance, and flexibility, affectionately calling it the "magic machine."
01. PC-based solutions break through existing limitations and significantly improve data transparency.
Tetra Pak's decision to adopt Beckhoff's PC-based control technology was primarily based on a deep consideration of its superior computing power, which was undoubtedly one of the decisive factors leading to this choice. Paolo Scarabelli, Director of Innovation and Analysis Line Solutions at Tetra Pak, emphasized an important aspect of this: "Our customers' demand for highly digitized and interconnected systems is constantly increasing. Beckhoff's PC-based control technology provides an ideal foundation for achieving these goals. XTS also enables tasks that were previously performed mechanically to be easily replaced by advanced software functions, marking another solid step forward in building digital machines."
Tetra Pak technical expert Fabio Bassisi explained, “The XTS mover can be controlled as an independent servo axis, which greatly simplifies and accelerates the introduction of new product formats and allows for full utilization of software flexibility. Furthermore, combined with a vision system for glue application monitoring, we are able to compensate for any mechanical tolerances with remarkable efficiency.” Bassisi continued, “We also employ an advanced equipment health monitoring system to comprehensively check the operational status of the equipment. All these factors play a crucial role in ensuring product quality and its ultimate success. Ultimately, beverage containers must meet the standard of reliable sealing and no leakage before they can be allowed to be shipped to end customers.”
02. Achieve high precision
Reliable control of complex motion sequences
The Tetra Pak® CAP40 Ultra High Speed Capping Machine features an exceptionally large number of axes—over 120 actual axes and 10 virtual spindles—demonstrating the high complexity of its motion control process. Most of these axes are used to configure two parallel XTS systems, each with a 4.5-meter track and 55 movers. Additionally, the system includes approximately 10 rotary servo axes specifically designed for tasks such as packaging conveying and hot melt adhesive application.
To ensure the cover adheres precisely to its three-dimensional geometry, the movement of the XTS movers and various rotational movements in the X, Y, and Z directions must be precisely synchronized. The unique feature here is that each pair of movers is interconnected via a specialized tooling structure, yet they operate independently and in coordination on two parallel-mounted XTS units. Whether the movers are arranged in a row on a single system or distributed across two different systems, the control software fully leverages its flexibility to ensure all movers maintain perfect synchronization at all times. According to Stefano Flore, Director of Embedded Automation for Tetra Pak's Packaging Line, XTS, with its modular design and excellent software capabilities, often achieves extremely high flexibility.
03. Control technology ensures
Sustained high performance
Tetra Pak chose Beckhoff's control technology because all components closely related to the system can be sourced in one place, ensuring seamless integration and efficient operation. The core components of the equipment control system are two C6032 ultra-compact industrial PCs, used to run HMI applications, two XTS systems, TwinCAT NC PTP-based motion control, and a TwinCAT PLC. Furthermore, each control unit has the ability to combine multiple functions (such as equipment simulation). In addition, the selected hardware platform provides ample space and potential for future expansion. Crucially, Beckhoff offers a wide range of products that precisely meet users' needs in terms of computing power, memory expansion, and form factor, ensuring the system can flexibly adapt to future development trends and demands.
When discussing the user experience of TwinCAT software, Paolo Scarabelli stated, “TwinCAT fully unlocks the potential of PC-based control technology, including support for multiple programming languages, including object-oriented languages, seamless integration with Visual Studio, comprehensive network configuration options, and excellent multi-core processing capabilities. Furthermore, the software has a clear structure, and its openness allows us to fully utilize the software library resources provided by Beckhoff, as well as easily achieve seamless integration of our own libraries, thereby creating customized condition monitoring systems tailored to specific equipment needs. We extensively used TwinCAT Scope for in-depth analysis during development. Overall, TwinCAT provided us with extremely comprehensive support, especially in achieving our standardized software development goals.”
The close partnership between the two parties will be further deepened in the future, as Stefano Flore remains convinced of the enormous potential of PC-based control technology in Tetra Pak® devices: “We believe that Cableless Technology (NCT) is a very promising further upgrade to the XTS system. We have already begun testing the various possibilities that XPlanar technology offers for a variety of applications. We also see the very attractive advantages of the MX-System cabinetless solution and TwinCAT Runtime for Linux®. We have enormous potential to surprise users, as experienced by the pilot customer in this case, and to meticulously craft a magical ‘machine’ for them.”
