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Founded 62 years ago, Marilan is the second largest biscuit maker in Brazil and the leading consumer brand in the Brazilian market. In addition, its products reach more than 50 countries, including Uruguay, Colombia, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Japan, Angola and Mozambique, among many others. With a 53 thousand square meter industrial park located in the interior of the state of São Paulo (SP), in the city of Marília, and with important expansion projects, including another factory under construction in the municipality of Igarassu, state of Pernambuco (PE), Marilan uses increasingly modern production processes, including automated packaging systems. An example of these modernization investments is Cama Group’s packaging solutions implemented at the Company’s Marilia facility.
To date, three Cama Group equipment have been purchased, which are geared towards the biscuit package boxing system, one side loading and two higher loading. The three devices also have box guards (boxing) incorporated in the machines and one of them is still flexible, allowing the use of boxes in sizes for 20, 24 and 27 packages.
Marilan’s packaging system modernization project was widely supported by Carlos Wanderley, responsible for marketing, delivery, installation and training for the use of the equipment, and since the beginning of the projects has shown an excellent partner.
Acquisition of Packaging System Machinery
In order to maximize the packaging system and gain increasing operational efficiency in its business, Marilan has acquired two machines to be incorporated into the production lines of Maizena and Pit Stop biscuits, these being Cama Group’s robotic loading units (IT285 model), having also purchased a third device, model IN218 Horizontal RSC for robotic loading, for the Cracker biscuit line.
Machine models and technical characteristics
The two Cama machines in the IT085 model used for the Maizena and Pit Stop biscuits production line are automatic, have a programmable logic controller (PLC) and a touch screen for loading RSC cardboard products (folding boxes). With a production speed of 10 boxes per minute, this model comes with a product pick head and dual two-axis robot for top box supply. It also features entry acceleration conveyor and item counting and grouping devices through two multi-cradle conveyor belts and space-filling box identification device. In addition, it seals the boxes with adhesive tape and automatically rejects the exit of open packages.
Cama´s model IN218 is used for Cracker biscuit line, which promotes automatic horizontal boxing and closing of the boxes. It brings cardboard box guarding system and promotes the insertion of products in the packaging. Very flexible, this model allows the use of three different box formats and has a maximum feed speed of nine boxes per minute. The equipment has a conveyor belt with three-to-one converging feature, and takes care of sealing the boxes by tape and automatically rejects the exit of open boxes.
Production at full steam
With 21 manufacturing lines and production capacity of around 220,000 tons per year, Marilan produces approximately 1.4 million packages or 80 million units of biscuits daily. The company produces more than 100 items, including savory biscuits, sweet biscuits, butter biscuits, donuts, sandwich biscuits, children’s rusk, wafers, special molded, cookies and items such as toast, chocolates and snacks. With an ever-increasing automation process, the factory operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Competitive Advantage with Automation and Production Expansion
With the acquisition of modern packaging solutions from Cama Group, Marilan gained in competitiveness to support its strong phase of geographic expansion and extension of its production volume to serve – with greater geographic proximity – the Northeast Brazilian market. In this sense, Marilan is building a new factory in Pernambuco, so that it can operate more competitively in such an important market.
“The new factory in Igarassu will have the main objective of serving the Northeast region more efficiently and competitively, an important consumer market in the food segment, which accounts for about 30% of the national consumption of biscuits”, says Ecio Vidotti Filho, Marilan´s Industrial Director.According to the executive, Cama Group solutions added-value to the business by allowing greater operational efficiency to the packaging system and, consequently, gains in the national and international market, with more uniformly and standardized packaged products. “Proper and careful handling of sensitive products such as biscuits is an undisputed differential of Cama Group equipment.”
Why Cama Group?
Cama Group’s choice of packaging machines was due to the simplicity of use and operation of the equipment, its safety features, its flexibility of operation with different box formats and to treat the product very carefully, because biscuits are, by nature, extremely delicate.
According to Vlamir Barriento, Marilan’s Occupational Safety and Maintenance Manager, “Cama’s solutions are safe, intuitive, easy to use and operate and can provide greater product uniformity, as well as eliminate the risk of failures in final production process, the packaging process.”
