Established
Founded in 1978 in Italy, Etipack is a company that designs, manufactures, and sells labeling and coding systems with self-adhesive labels, friction feeders and pick and place machines. Etipack is a part of the packaging machinery market, renowned for its state-of-the-art technologies that can accommodate the requests of customers even of the most demanding markets, such as pharmaceutical, cosmetic, food, chemical, and paper industry.
Etipack, together with a widespread network of sales, distribution, and technical assistance in over 30 countries, ensures a constant presence, accompanying their customers with their projects, from the start to the very end.
Etipack uses Qt inside their machines to create the human-machine interfaces.
Read more about developing with Qt for embedded devices
Daniele Alberti, R&D - Software, Etipack
The main development challenges faced by Etipack were to create a product that could achieve both their functional and design goals. In order to maximise their options for design, they chose Qt and its support for embedded boards over the purchase of HMIs that were equipped with proprietary tools for graphic interfaces.
With Qt, they are renewing the HMI part on their next range of Labeling Systems, and the product will also be used on the labeling machines which are the core business of the company.
With Qt, Etipack was able to transition to a new colour graphic interface that achieved a better interaction between the users and the machine, simplifying the setting and consultation operations. Being able to use icons and graphic representations allowed them to improve how the various functions of the machines were learned and understood.
Qt’s framework has a very high degree of customisation when necessary, but it also allows simplicity when that is preferred. Elements are quickly to use and deploy, and Etipack was able to satisfy all their functional needs, achieving a more than adequate design. Additionally, the company was able to reuse a lot of the elements from the first project on subsequent projects.
Beyond this, the other benefits of Qt lie in allowing freedom to change hardware providers if necessary without going through another development cycle. Thanks to the high level of adaptability that is available through Qt, Etipack has the possibility to constantly update and improve the product design.
Etipack is currently using Qt 5.15 with their Yocto 3.2 hardware.
Etipack’s vision is to build value-for-money solutions that make their technology accessible to as many people as possible. Etipack SPA’s mission is to design and build reliable, technologically advanced, and customized solutions to meet customers’ needs. Transparency, ethics, and attention to people allow us to create lasting relationships. Today, Etipack is an international group consisting of subsidiaries and affiliates.