Using intelligent technologies and services, Sesotec helps companies achieve quality and increase competitive advantage
Producers and processors in the food and plastics industry need to be able to rely on innovative material sorting and inspection technologies to achieve the best possible quality in production. Sesotec is able to meet this need thanks to more than 40 years of expertise in the development of devices and systems for the sorting, analysis and detection of foreign bodies.
In addition to the German headquarters in Schönberg, Lower Bavaria, Sesotec is represented by six subsidiaries in Singapore, China, the USA, India, Canada and Thailand, and has opened sales offices in Italy and France, as well as cooperating with more than 60 partners in all major global markets. A new competence center with showroom in Varedo (MB) has also been operating in our country since October 2022.
“Our subsidiary has a young history, but we have a very large installed base in Italy,” says Paolo Mauri, Country Manager Italy. In fact, Sesotec has been present in our country for 40 years, although indirectly in the food sector, because the machines were re-branded by the installation companies. The Group has grasped the potential of this market and is investing heavily to assert its brand both in food and plastics sectors through targeted marketing actions, social media, and presence at specialized trade fairs. Our participation at Ipack Ima in 2022 was a great success that we plan to repeat this year at PLAST in Milan and Cibus Tec in Parma.
The showroom has given us considerable visibility, as well as providing us with the opportunity to invite customers to show machines or to test products, and to hold courses and meetings.
Our structure is lean and dynamic with two sales divisions, Plast and Food, led respectively by Ulf Stöckelmann and Paolo Regazzoni. We set up an aftersales service network by training 14 technicians throughout Italy, to give a complete service to the customer by providing not only technical support, but also competent advice to increase process efficiency and competitive advantage. Thanks to our flexibility and the high quality of our offer, the results are truly amazing: we are quickly catching up with our competitors, already present in the territory before us, and now it is the customer itself who requests our intervention. Obviously, companies in the sector are already equipped with control and analysis tools because the regulations require it. So it is a matter of presenting ourselves as an alternative to our competitors, and here the quality of our products and our service emerges: by allowing customers to use the machines on trial and providing them attentive and efficient support, we create an ongoing partnership that can undermine established suppliers. This is our strength and the reason for our success.”
Most popular products
Sesotec offers the market metal detection systems, X-ray inspection systems, sorting & recycling machines, magnetic systems and analysis equipment, with AI technologies and services in foreign bodies detection, aimed to ensure safe, efficient and compliant production processes.
“Our portfolio includes several products,” says Ulf Stöckelmann, Country Sales Manager – Plastics, “but we are particularly proud to present two of them because of the appreciation they have received from the market.
The first product is one of our best sellers: GF Metal Detector for pipeline products, a high-speed metal detector for loading and emptying silos that can identify the contaminant during the transfer process: it is installed in one meter of pipe and equipped with a double valve in order not to lose pressure inside the pipe and not to create swirls. Metal contaminants, whether in plastic granulate or flour, can damage machines or lead to impure end-products. Our metal detectors provide optimal protection.
The second one is FLAKE SCAN, an analysis device that tends to replace the traditional operator: when faced with a granulate, a flake or a grinding product with sufficient surface area, the machine is able to detect both the colour and type of polymer and the presence of metal. It has a capacity of 20 kg/h, which means that it can test hundreds of samples in a short time without the need for specialized technicians or, for example, a gas-chromatograph. From the hopper, the flake falls through a series of belts and is bombarded by sensors that return a report immediately available for internal management, to be sent to the production manager, or to be used as a certificate to be attached to the Big Bag. It can also be used at the material acceptance stage to check that the purchased goods are in line with the minimum incoming requirements.
The Italian market, which is very active in the recycling and regeneration of plastic materials, has grasped the potential of this instrument, making it Sesotec’s best-selling analysis system in just a few months. FLAKE SCAN has a unique sensitivity and is equipped with sensors that other systems do not have. Apparently it requires a significant investment, but in reality it replaces a series of machines and laboratory instruments that would cost three times as much, not to mention the fact that it does not require any manpower; human error is also eliminated as a result. FLAKE SCAN itself can detect visual contamination, such as wood, silicone, rubber, paper, as well as all series of polymers. If a polymer is not present in the machine’s database, its artificial intelligence adds it, so its performance improves with the use; it also detects differences by colour. It is very flexible, with pleasant, multilingual and user-friendly graphics, and is equipped with a trolley, so it can be easily transported to various areas of production without difficulty. Being connected to the data line, it records every process and the software manages the information received. The machine, excluding the small conveyor belt, has no moving parts that could fail, but in the event of a hitch, we are able to intervene remotely in real time and avoid machine downtime. This is a product that only Sesotec has and is solely the result of its R&D efforts. This is the reason why we are not afraid of competition.
“We will exhibit FLAKE SCAN at PLAST and then it will be placed in our showroom for customers to test directly with their products,” explains Mauri.
With today software and artificial intelligence we can solve virtually any problem in production. Sesotec sets no limits and invests 10% of its turnover in R&D to anticipate market and production needs. Customers are our stimulus to always study on new solutions. It is important to emphasise that we own our software and analysis system because it is produced in-house, completely Made in Germany: this allows us to intervene directly to make improvements or modifications. It is now a proven fact that the success of a company depends not only on the quality of its product, but also on the service it offers its customers. We want to help our companies grow, improving the quality of their products and guiding them towards unique, cutting-edge technologies capable of increasing their competitiveness”.
