Manufacturing
Case Study

Pelliconi: data certainty and the power of AI to reduce waste

AI that is good for manufacturing

Founded in Bologna in 1939 as "Ditta Angelo Pelliconi" (DAP), specializing in the production of crown caps, today it is a world leader in metal, aluminum, and plastic closures for the food and beverage industry. With over 32 billion closures produced annually and multiple locations worldwide, it employs more than 700 people. Its motto, "Innovation, life" reflects the company's commitment to leveraging technology (in this case, Artificial Intelligence) to capitalize on available data and understand how to reduce production waste. To achieve its goals, it chose the expertise of Var Group Data Science, the partner that helped them understand, analyze, and better direct their data to improve the process.

From training to adoption: the transformative power of AI

The project was born after the Data Science training program with Var Group, thanks to the client's employees' newfound awareness of the inherent value of corporate data. Recognizing Var Group's expertise and industry knowledge, the collaboration then evolved into a data analysis effort to identify insights useful for improving the production process and reducing waste. The goal was to analyze the data and transform it into a solid foundation for evolving the way the organization interacted with its available information assets, without implementing engineering models, but in a simple and immediately applicable way.

A new awareness of production data

The Var Group team analyzed every stage of the crown cap production process, focusing on the three macro-phases of painting, lithography, and cap forming, to identify the factors that lead to a greater risk of excessive waste. The insights generated by AI helped Pelliconi investigate the process more concretely, distinguishing between statistical correlations and causality thanks to the close involvement of domain experts throughout the process. This allowed them to consolidate fragmented data, providing visibility to all owners and improving organizational awareness. It also prevented misinterpretations, ensuring the accuracy and usefulness of the analyses performed.

More accurate analysis and safer decisions

The project developed for Pelliconi by Var Group's Data Science team was completely customized to the company's needs. AI played a crucial role, enabling the aggregation of fragmented data and automatic identification of the relationships between them, without the need to build explicit physical models. Pelliconi now has the tools and empirical evidence to prepare more accurate analyses and make more effective and reliable strategic decisions.

"With Var Group, we learned how to extract value from data to improve our production processes. Thanks to the training of Data Science models, we not only identified areas of inefficiency, but by aggregating fragmented data and providing greater internal visibility, we increased awareness throughout the organization, guiding it toward an increasingly impactful and sustainable business."

Francesco Ciccarelli | Quality Project Specialist