Speaker: Davide Montanari
Sales Area Manager, Hygiene

IMA TMC Tissue Machinery Company offers innovative solutions for packaging and handling tissue and personal care products. For 20 years, the company has been offering cutting edge solutions—not just from a technological point of view but in terms of service quality and optimization of the products process.

Davide Montanari, sales area manager, hygiene, discusses how TMC’s solutions are evolving along with changes facing the hygiene market such as increased life expectancies, the need for thinner products and the implementation of digital production.

NWI: What are some of the main challenges your customers are facing in the hygiene and packaging industries?
DM: The personal care product lines related to the nonwovens market are created using a converter that transforms rolls of nonwoven fabric into final products such as diapers and absorbent mats. These machines operate continuously at very high speeds, producing a large amount of output that must then be received by the next machine in line—the one dedicated to packaging. The danger that manufacturers need to avoid is not product waste (which is now automatic and no longer results in machine downtime, also thanks to modern vision system technologies) but rather production stoppage due to jamming. Therefore, the downstream packaging machines in the converting process must be particularly efficient in their input phase to prevent machine downtime. The design of our machines is based on the continuity of the production processes, which is precisely what our customers demand from us: efficiency, reliability, and stability.

NWI: How has TMC’s focus on R&D allowed you to help them meet these challenges?
DM: The key to our growth lies in the timely response that our R&D team is capable of providing to these needs. At the IMA TMC headquarters, we have a dedicated machine for our R&D where it is possible to develop tests directly on the machine, both from the perspective of the configurations required by the customer and in terms of the machinability of the product. This allows us to anticipate any potential problems that may arise later once the machine is up and running.

NWI: Have you recently rolled out any new products or services?
DM: The D-NAMIC is designed to be always up-to-date and renewable. It is intended for both entry-level producers who approach the market with limited production needs that can be increased over time, both for bigger manufacturers that need to increase their production in terms of speed (by upgrading the machine from one lane to dual lane) and packaging format thanks to various optional modules that can be added to the machine. This makes the D-NAMIC a long-lasting investment that can adapt to the changing needs of the market. Additionally, it is capable of processing sustainable packaging with extensive variety of product configurations, to meet the increasing requests of manufacturers in terms of recyclable packaging and different market requests.

NWI: How does your technology innovate in this market?
DM: Technology innovation is not always equivalent to “more complication.” On the contrary, we use technology to provide our customers with cutting-edge, efficient machines and simplify the job of the operators who run them as much as possible. For example, the motion control of all machine axes is linked to a virtual cam. This way, all movements are perfectly synchronized, and their speed is adapted to the time available for the cycle.

On the control panel, the operator is only required to enter a few data for a new recipe, and the machine calculates the best settings accordingly. Our customers can easily add new formats on their own without requiring our intervention.

As mentioned earlier, innovation also lies in efficiency improvement. It is easy to increase the efficiency of a machine when the rate is low, but it becomes increasingly difficult as you approach 100%. We are focused on this and have developed solutions for monitoring products throughout the entire process inside the packaging machine to obtain those small numbers that make a big difference.

NWI: What are some of the biggest changes you have seen in the market during your 20 years in business?
DM: The increasing life expectancy and people affected by incontinence are driving growth in the adult diaper market. While in the past this market was primarily concentrated in Europe and North America, it is now considered a global trend.

The baby diaper market is also evolving rapidly. Advancements in technology and manufacturing processes are enabling the production of thinner and thinner products, with pull-up configurations quickly replacing T-shaped products.

Moreover, the implementation of digital production monitoring applications developed in the latest years has made machines more efficient and enabled manufacturers to better analyze and schedule production.

NWI: How has having branches in North America and Brazil helped expand your business?
DM: It’s not just a matter of being in the same time zone for quicker delivery times, lower shipping costs, and reduced import taxes, or being in the same time zone for timely technical support. Having branches in North America and Brazil enables us to gain an internal understanding of the markets and the specific needs of our customers in those regions.

NWI: Do you have plans to expand into other geographic regions? Explain.
DM: Soon, we anticipate further expansion of our commercial network within the United States, as we see it as a market with significant growth potential.

Visit us at https://ima.it/tissueandnonwoven/tmc/  or email [email protected]