The impact of Celli Group’s digital thread is clear: they’ve increased customer acquisition by 20%, sellout by 14%, and decreased service costs by 10%, among other benefits. But how did they get there? With so many integrated technologies—IoT, PLM, CAD, and AR—implementing a digital thread can be challenging. In partnership with Accenture, Celli Group took a step-by-step approach, delivering value at each stage of the journey and throughout the product lifecycle.
Celli Group is an innovative leader in the beverage industry
Celli Group is a global leader in the sector of equipment and accessories for beverage dispensing. The company, founded in 1974 and headquartered in San Giovanni in Marignano (Rimini), now has about 800 employees in six production facilities, three in Italy and three in the United Kingdom. It exports its products to over 100 countries worldwide. The mission of the Celli group is clear: to guarantee end- consumers the best drinking experience and to guarantee producers a great brand experience, all the while using the most modern technology.
A digital thread creates a closed loop across people, processes, and products
With Accenture’s guidance and PTC’s solutions, Celli Group created a digital thread that unifies and orchestrates data across the product lifecycle— from design to manufacturing, to services, and back to R&D. The digital thread enables a closed loop between the physical and digital worlds to optimize products, people, processes, and places.
For Celli Group, this meant digitizing processes to analyze, manage, and communicate information so decisions could be made faster and more accurately. The knowledge gleaned from one activity can now be shared upstream and downstream to inform others. Departments and teams collaborate more easily across functions, improving both products and physical processes and empowering the people involved at every step.
Leveraging a digital thread, they are optimizing internal processes, driving new revenue streams, improving the customer experience, and differentiating their product and service offerings through innovation.
Celli Group and Accenture leveraged PTC’s technology suite to bring the digital thread to life
To make their vision a reality, Celli Group leveraged several PTC products, including Windchill, ThingWorx, and Vuforia solutions—as well as Microsoft Azure for secure cloud storage— as the foundation for their digital thread. The combination of product lifecycle management software (PLM), the Internet of Things (IoT), and augmented reality (AR) fueled their digital transformation.
ThingWorx is PTC’s IoT platform with end-to-end connectivity capabilities. It allows users to make intelligent decisions based on real-time data and provides visibility into production and machines with data analytics and a rich array of insights and reporting. It’s an open and flexible solution that easily integrates with existing infrastructure.
Microsoft Azure provides the global scalability and extensive interoperability capabilities that Celli Group requires. Azure gives Celli Group a trusted, reliable cloud platform with state of the art, end-to-end security capabilities.
Celli Group used Windchill PLM as the backbone of their digital thread, establishing a single source of data across the product lifecycle. Windchill is a comprehensive PLM solution for data governance and traceability, providing an authoritative source of truth across the organization. For example, changes to CAD models can be easily and automatically proliferated throughout downstream deliverables.
Using Vuforia Studio, Celli Group can efficiently turn the most current CAD designs into AR experiences. With Vuforia Chalk, they can connect service and field technicians with an expert, so that they can both see and discuss the situation at hand.
The first step: Leveraging IoT to create connected products and drive R&D improvements
Accenture were key to ensuring a successful digital transformation. They helped Celli Group take a step-by-step approach, delivering value at each stage of the journey. Additionally, PTC’s domain expertise and ready-to-configure solutions powered the rapid development and customization that Celli Group needed.
While mapping out the strategic journey is crucial, according to Roberto Cavarero, Sr. Principal, Product Management at Accenture, the most important step for any organization is just to get started: “The most important thing to do is just begin the transformation, even if you feel the technology isn’t there or you have difficulties connecting teams. You can’t speed up your processes and get results faster without starting somewhere!”
Celli Group began their own digital transformation journey using ThingWorx to create a connected beverage distribution system. The IoT-enabled solution turns manufactured or already-installed equipment into smart devices—unlocking insights where beverages are dispensed. Connectivity allows them to collect information on the equipment and beverages at the point of sale. With sensors on their fonts, taps, coolers, and other equipment, Celli Group provides beverage companies with meaningful data on their products like temperature and pressure, up until the moment the drink is poured.
Celli Group’s connected draught system, IntelliDraught, allows customers to generate several key improvements. To start, they improve quality by enhancing customer visibility and control at the point of sale. They can monitor factors like sanitation, product shelf life, and draught temperature—improving draught quality by 27%. They’re also able to increase uptime of distribution equipment and reduce costs by ensuring that dispensing equipment is up and running so that drinks and revenue can continue to flow.
In addition to giving customers visibility into their equipment, ThingWorx data supports troubleshooting processes and R&D improvements. Beverage distributors can check the condition of their product or the maintenance schedule at any moment and dispatch teams to intervene if an issue occurs. Celli Group can use that data to drive improvements in the design and manufacturing of their products.
“One of the huge advantages of using IoT is you can make adjustments in the field and increase the effectiveness of the solution in real-time, which ultimately accelerates time to market,” says Cesare Schiatti, Digital Solution Manager at Celli Group.
Integrating PLM to orchestrate data and close the loop
Celli Group then integrated their IoT platform with PLM capabilities—further modernizing their operations and breaking down manufacturing innovation silos. They implemented a modelbased system, using enterprise PLM as the foundation for their digital thread. This enables them to unify and orchestrate data across the product lifecycle, speeding the time to market for their new, smart and connected Hydration Station offering in collaboration with global brands like Nestle and PepsiCo.
They can drive on-the-go improvements and close the loop with field data. Integrations between PLM, IoT, and AR enable connection with alpha- and beta-models, in test beds and in the field. Engineering teams using CAD can leverage IoT data to make on-the-go adjustments, allowing them to keep track of engineering changes in one place.
Ultimately, Celli Group facilitated continuity and collaboration across the entire product lifecycle, harmonizing and standardizing product data management across departments. Now, collaboration is easier across functions for both product and physical process improvements.
Vuforia augmented reality solutions provide support in different steps
Vuforia Chalk and Studio enable Celli Group to enhance their pre-sales and codesign, training, and service support with AR capabilities.
Engineering teams can use Vuforia AR solutions to leverage existing CAD data to create full-scale digital product visualizations before the start of prototyping. They can position these immersive AR experiences in the real-world environment.
“One of the huge advantages of using IoT is you can make adjustments in the field and increase the effectiveness of the solution in real-time, which ultimately accelerates time to market,”
Cesare Schiatti,
Digital Solution Manager at Celli Group
This allows engineering teams to see where the potential flaws are and validate solutions, making real-time updates to the design. Users manage engineering changes as they occur and create AR instructions from evolving CAD models. This gives Celli Group the ability to quickly make live adjustments to designs and conduct faster onboarding with informative AR-guided instructions.
For training purposes, users can access interactive AR experiences that demonstrate how to set up equipment. Augmented reality content and instructions are delivered on-demand and in the context of the physical equipment. The impact: Step-by-step instructions help users learn how to set up equipment safely and precisely.
Service support teams benefit greatly from Vuforia remote assistance solutions as well. For the installation of new equipment, Vuforia Chalk enables remote experts to guide users through key on-screen visuals overlaid on real-world environments. Additionally, senior technicians can provide remote, live support to junior technicians.
Instructions can also be recorded so they are saved for future reference.
Celli Group can not only train new workers, but they can also assist geographically diverse customers. With remote work quickly becoming commonplace, Vuforia Chalk helps reduce or eliminate the need for travel. This saves money and ensures the safety of both customers and employees. Furthermore, service and operations technicians can instantly connect and collaborate with experts to solve equipment problems, and users with all levels of technical expertise can work seamlessly with experts.
Celli Group and Accenture successfully delivered value across the entire value chain
Ultimately, the digital thread enables Celli Group to speed time to market, improve product quality, and unlock new business models— driving an essential competitive advantage in the industry. They have improved design and manufacturing processes, accelerating time to market and shortening design time, and improved collaboration between engineering, testing, and manufacturing departments so design problems are fixed quickly.
Crucially, Celli has also created new servitization business models for the entire product lifecycle.
In fact, they’ve increased customer acquisition by 20% and sellout by 14%. Predictive maintenance models have led to huge savings, including increasing planned intervention by 8%, optimizing capex reallocation by 5%, increasing remote resolution by 20%, and decreasing service costs by 10%. Furthermore, they’ve created new revenue streams and an innovative business model with Smart Warranty contracts.
Accenture is deeply committed to innovation and is working with Celli to showcase their smart connected solutions and products at The Center of Innovation in Turin, Italy. Moving forward, Celli Group is excited to build on their digital thread capabilities. They’re confident they can build on their history of innovation and continue to reshape the beverage industry.