Customised solutions, an almost obsessive attention to detail in research and technological innovation, safety and flexibility with the aim of contributing to the development of future packaging technologies. This is the calling card of Mariani di Carrè  in the province of Vicenza, a company that has been on the market since 1960 and exports its products to more than 45 countries worldwide.

The business was founded and developed by producing packaging machines and systems for the dairy sector, then diversified into many other sectors, from food in general to drinks, from graphic design to household detergents, from beauty products to pharmaceuticals. All this was made possible by a highly specialised research team composed of engineers and computer programmers. Once designed and manufactured the resulting product is a Made in Italy gem: machinery or entire systems that are almost closer to robotics than to mechanics that are exported to five continents, with the guarantee of on-site support.

The company’s core business is engineering and manufacturing complete lines for the dairy industry, ranging from packaging of the finished product to the delivery of entire pallets of stacked products, or other packaging to be transported to the warehouse or distribution platforms. For example, Mariani produces a complete basket mechanisation system with disposable containers used to automatically package fresh milk, which is then stored in refrigerators. It is a system with a high degree of automation, including the supervision and monitoring process. The system uses plastic baskets patented by Mariani that move on palettes. In constructing this system Mariani created a completely independent data gathering network capable of overlapping with all the machines. All the information is then coordinated by specific supervision and management software that communicates with both the central system and the PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) via a dedicated computer. In this way it is possible, for example, to programme production and relate the sales, warehouse and production to one another.

Other flagship products by the company include packaging systems for the pharmaceutical sector, and in the past 5 years Mariani has dedicated much care and attention to this area. The system entails the automatic collection of the product boxes from each production line, their labelling and then their transportation to the storage system on one or two shared transporters. Crates are then swiped in front of a scanner that reads the product data and sends the crate towards a storage unit where all the products from the same batch end up. When the unit has reached the quantity of boxes required to form a complete pallet then they are unloaded, strapped and labelled before being sent to the automatic warehouse, accompanied by all necessary information in electronic format for the final handling.