CAMA-WITTENSTEIN: A WINNING PARTNERSHIP

“Birds of a feather flock together!” says a well-known proverb. That is just what happened with the successful partnership between CAMA and WITTENSTEIN which began back in 2001, when it was still known as alpha gearheads, and it still goes on. Two companies with similar DNA, both customer-oriented, with a wide range of highly technological and reliable products. Companies which constantly search for innovation.
CAMA Group is an Italian company which has been producing high-tech systems for secondary packaging for almost thirty years, from the receiving of packaged products to every phase of packing which precedes palletization. Its machines, which are mainly manufactured for the food field (90% of their sales), particularly for baked goods (biscuits, snacks), confectionery and dairy products (yogurt, cheese and ice-creams), include forming, closing and cartoning machines, case packers, sleeving machines and 2-4 axis robots equipped with vision systems.
In order to satisfy market demand, the company has invested about 5% of its turnover in Research & Development. “This choice has been our strength and thanks to our continuous product innovation we are able to offer ‘state of the art’ systems to our customers”, declares Annalisa Bellante, Marketing Manager of CAMA Group.
“The quality of our systems also lies in our choice of dependable suppliers, such as WITTENSTEIN, with whom we share the constant drive towards product innovation and reliability. All that has enabled us to grow, notwithstanding the economic crisis of the last few years, and to triple our turnover over the last 5 years reaching about 40 million Euros in 2008", concludes Annalisa Bellante.
“That is true”, confirms Alessandra Suriano, Communications Director of WITTENSTEIN S.P.A., the Italian subsidiary of WITTENSTEIN alpha GmbH, “we have a privileged relationship with CAMA that has lasted for years, based on values like quality and reliability, which are essential for supplying customers with complete solutions designed for their specific needs.”
The constant investment in R&D has made WITTENSTEIN Group the undisputed leader in the design, development and production of low backlash planetary gearheads, servo right-angle gearboxes, rotary and linear servo-actuators and complete transmission systems. Today, its solutions add up to more than 40 thousand possible combinations and 85% of its products are “younger” than 5 years. Gearheads are small, but essential parts within a machine and can make the difference in terms of quality. “CAMA is a very important customer, not only in terms of turnover, but also for the kind of machinery they produce. Since their production lines can work nonstop for even up to 24 hours at high speed, the quality level of all of their parts must be the top. This awareness and the responsibility for our partners drive us to be more and more innovative”, continues Alessandra Suriano.
Due to their precision and high-reliability, WITTENSTEIN products are installed on most CAMA systems. Amongst the latest and most innovative applications we quote the servo-actuator TPM+ (photo) on CAMA robotic lines. TPM+ compacts the motor-gearbox solution into a minimal space so that it can be flanked by different multitask transport units. This leads to a more functional machine layout, easier maintenance and a more modern and dynamic group image. As a matter of fact, TPM+ merges the planetary gearhead and AC servo motor into a single unit reducing its installation space by over 20%. Its new technological design and its rounded “corners” make it less subject to impurity deposits without affecting its precision, functionality and controllability, even working at high speed.

The new Delta TRIAFLEX robot, which is a technological evolution of the CAMA’s “custom made” robot range, is equipped with WITTENSTEIN alpha TP+ series gearboxes. This is the successor of the TP which has been developed with high precision and stiffness requirements for robotics applications. Thanks to its helicoidal gear-cutting and to the optimization of its single parts, TP+ is extremely noiseless and produces up to 40% more torque than the previous series. For the high dynamics of TRIAFLEX, TP+ gearheads represent the ideal transmission and enable simple and reliable coupling with robot’s long, carbon fibre arms (see photo).
TRIAFLEX can reach a speed of up to 150 cycles per minute, works in single and double line tracking and, from a technical point of view, can perform particularly complicated operations, such as the management and loading of products onto a continuously working machine. Combined with an “intelligent” vision system, TRIAFLEX is able to work on three dimensions, rotate its head for 360 degrees, collect products at random from a conveyor belt and position them correctly into their packaging. It is equipped with 4 controlled axes, with carbon fibre arms for collecting and depositing from any position and for loading, for example, a moving flow pack or a horizontal cartoning machine.
“This robot clearly simplifies all the product handling required in a production line, from feeding to loading, and it has an excellent benefit/cost ratio. We have obtained the necessary reliability and flexibility by combining in-depth movement control with high manipulation speed”, explains Daniele Bellante, General Manager of CAMA Group.
“Our robots", concludes Daniele Bellante, “are designed to be integrated within our packaging systems and are versatile and compact; this is the reason why our electrical cabin is much more functional compared to that of an integrator, which introduces an external robot in a production line.”
CAMA’s aim is to satisfy its customers’ needs by providing them with custom-tailored solutions for every packaging request and WITTENSTEIN is the partner who makes it possible to reach this important goal.

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