MACULAN FRATELLI srl: the Industry 4.0 revolution in a small business specializing in furniture for public establishments

THE CHALLENGE

For more than 70 years, Maculan has been designing and creating furnishing solutions for all types of public establishments, such as bars, restaurants, tobacconists, pastry shops, wine bars, bakeries, take-aways, delicatessens, hotels, and much more. Since 1946, the company has furnished thousands of establishments across Italy and beyond.

In 2021, with the aim of increasing production efficiency, the company decided to upgrade its machinery to Industry 4.0 standards by interconnecting the new ELIX BIESSE machine. This choice allowed the company to access the tax credit provided by the Transition 4.0 Plan and to start a partnership with Orchestra aimed at transforming Maculan into a digitalized enterprise.

THE SOLUTION

To digitalize the production process and optimize the management of production orders, the SMARTCONNECTION factory digital system by BIESSE “powered by RETUNER®” was employed. This MES software, developed by RETUNER® in collaboration with BIESSE, is part of Orchestra’s suite of products and is specifically designed for small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the furniture sector for public establishments. This technology enables the connection of production operators on any device to track all stages of production, allowing them to record activities, downtimes, production progress, and anomalies.

THE BENEFITS

The benefits observed with the SMARTCONNECTION technology include:

• Access to real-time updated data to verify the status of the machine at any time and understand which processes consume the most resources.
• Monitoring and controlling product processing times accessible from any device at any time.
• Overall increase in production efficiency.

SMARTCONNECTION has revolutionized the company’s production process, encouraging Maculan to maintain the INDUSTRY 4.0 standards by subscribing to the maintenance fee for new versions of the software.

The product has met the company’s expectations, as evidenced by the owner’s statement: “The software has allowed us to take a step forward in processing management, and this makes us think we are on the right track. Although we have just started using it, it proves to be a valid system that provides additional tools for work and time management.”