Costruzioni Meccaniche Sottoriva S.p.A. manufactures a wide range of machines, ovens and complete systems for bakeries, pastry shops, pizzerias and confectionery industries.

The bakery sector is heterogeneous: while industry has already digitized processes, artisan companies are now approaching digital services for production management.
The ARCO Sottoriva Project was created to harness the connectivity of machinery and start a process of servitization, expanding the offerings with digital services aimed at both industry and crafts. Through revamping and the use of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the project aims to connect machines and develop an IT architecture that enables digital services, making plants comply with Industry 4.0 standards.

Sottoriva thus aims to increase its digital maturity and consolidate its competitive advantage, distinguishing itself in the industry even among SMEs. The project places the mechanical quality of products alongside tools to collect, communicate and analyze data, enabling remote control.
This transformation will benefit both customers, who will be able to improve productivity, energy efficiency, safety and plant life, and the company, which will be able to offer value-added services, build customer loyalty, optimize internal performance and enable new business models.

The implementation of a service for the collection of data generated by machines was aimed at making Sottoriva S.p.A. a company capable of initiating Data-Driven activities driven by the analysis of the behavior of its products. In this way, it was possible to develop a framework that enabled SMEs to derive value from the data generated by the machinery in operation at its customers’ premises.

With regard to activities dedicated to predictive maintenance, the impact and benefits provided by the introduction of the IIoT platform capable of identifying the health status of machinery through operating parameters was analyzed.
It was also found to be essential to analyze the cost of transferring and saving data to a dedicated infrastructure in order to remotely assess the health status of their machinery.

IIoT (Industrial Internet of Thing) platform required to enable the connection of machines and the subsequent transmission of their operating parameters.

Development of a web application available to customers of Sottoriva S.p.a. dedicated to providing reporting services, monitoring and remote control of machines.

Identification of a servitization strategy: a business model was defined through which the types of services that can be delivered through the developed IoT solution, as well as their value and costs, could be identified.

Identification of signals of interest generated by machinery and establishment of their appropriate acquisition and transmission policy.

Development of IT architecture that meets the needs and requirements of the user, so as to bring value to customers’ production departments.

Development of know-how dedicated to the concepts of Predictive Maintenance: it was possible to identify alteration states of a piece of machinery with respect to the normal deterioration curve, which consequently led to the development of appropriate maintenance engineering.