Assolombarda, the association of industrialists from the metropolitan city of Milan and the provinces of Lodi, Monza and Brianza and Pavia, aims to recognize local companies for their growth and innovation capabilities with its awards. Prizes will be awarded in the categories of "Sustainability," "Digitalization," "Performance," "Design," and "Responsibility and Culture".
The "Leopoldo Pirelli" prize in the category “Digitalization” was recently awarded to the Italian Datwyler Healthcare Solutions plant based in Pregnana. The company prevailed over hundreds of other applicants with its digitization project. The award-winning project stood out for its collaborative technology, simulations, and employee involvement to optimize a cleanroom process. In particular, virtual reality helped to test the new workflows "live", to optimize them and then to define the room layout and equipment accordingly.


More safety thanks to digitalization
Datwyler's Healthcare Solutions business area supplies the pharmaceutical industry, among others, with elastomer components for syringes and medicine vials. Quality and purity are top priorities here. In order to avoid undesirable reactions with the filled active ingredient or health consequences for the patient, specific measures must be taken to ensure that medication vials are not closed with an incorrect or contaminated rubber stopper.
Between all the highly automated production processes of Industry 4.0, there are still work steps that have to be performed by humans. This is where digital possibilities such as virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) can help. At Datwyler's Italian site in Pregnana employees practice using various production systems thanks to a computer simulation. This checks whether the employees are doing everything correctly and also points out mistakes. In this way, they can keep learning and real production remains undisturbed.
