Automation solutions for the food and beverage industry

ABB's technology meets the most advanced requirements in the field of motion control and has become one of the keys to the success of ILAPAK, a world leader in the quality of its packaging machines. Only the best technologies are used in the machines manufactured by ILAPAK, a company that builds industrial packaging lines.

ILAPAK is headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland, and operates worldwide, with production facilities in Switzerland, Italy, the USA, and China. Founded in 1970, it specializes in the design, engineering, and construction of a wide range of vertical and horizontal flexible packaging machines.
The application is intended for use in various sectors, including pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and especially food, with a particular focus on fresh foods: baked goods, cookies, chocolate, coffee, sugar, meat and poultry, fish, pasta, pizza, tortillas, snacks, and pet food. The group's "lowest cost per package" philosophy centers on minimizing packaging costs for its customers.
ABB products
ABB is one of ILAPAK's partners for motion control needs in machinery and for its significant role in robotics. Partner selection is based on quality, reliability, and a global presence. Depending on the machine type, the following components are integrated into the packaging machines: ABB AC500 series PLCs, ACS355 units in combination with asynchronous motors, BSD servo systems in combination with BSM synchronous motors, and FlexPicker IRB360 robots.

The primary function of the ABB AC500 PLC in ILAPAK machines is axis management. It provides the drives with analog references and reads the actual positions from the encoders, thus closing the position loop in the PLC. This is made possible by the high-speed execution of programs in the AC500 PLC and the availability of a multitasking environment that allows for the rapid handling of position control loops for high-priority tasks.
Another key feature of the AC500 PLCs is their ability to be programmed in ST (Structured Text) language, allowing for sophisticated and customized management of axis logic. This programming language, natively integrated into the CoDeSys AC500 Control Builder programming tool, simplifies application development and debugging. The AC500 PLC also handles welding bar temperature adjustment, automatic machine sequences, and alarm control. The PLC communicates with a control panel that displays significant data, alarms, and fault conditions. The panel also allows for the configuration of machine parameters.

The AC500 PLC's multitasking capabilities allow for optimized CPU size, thereby reducing application costs while ensuring high performance levels. Another key cost-saving factor is the AC500 PLC's versatile input/output card capabilities: encoders can be read directly via dedicated digital inputs, and single digital channels can be configured via software as either input or output channels (configurable channels). The number of components required to implement the PLC-based machine control system is therefore reduced, as is the number of spare parts and related codes to manage.

The benefit for the customer
ILAPAK chose to work with ABB for several reasons: the inherent quality of the products, excellent distribution, worldwide presence, and a very wide range of automation and electromechanical parts with perfect scalability. ABB was also preferred for its multinational structure, organization, and culture, which promptly respond to the needs of machine manufacturers, and for its application-oriented technical support, which understands and utilizes both the application and the unique product.
More information: www.abb.es/plc