Robots get stuck into food packaging

Robotic systems along the factory line have been instrumental in revolutionising packaging today’s food.

As robots maximise efficiency through their speed and automation, they are ideal for handling repetitive tasks. They can manage a larger volume of products than manual labour and, if it is well integrated to a company’s needs, it can adapt to any changes the business may undergo.

Robots in the food packaging industry generally fall into three categories: pick and place applications, feed placement and palletising.

It is easy to see why robots have successfully become a common sight in food packaging factories: they save labour costs, do not require any sickness benefit or holiday pay, they are an answer in overcoming labour shortages, and unless otherwise programmed, they will not demand anything more than being switched on.

Consistent quality can be achieved at the implementation stage, as avoiding mishaps is as much a concern for a system manufacturer as it is for the end user.

Robots in line

For an example we will look at a Swedish coffee company, Löfbergs Lila. This company employs 200 people and has a turnover of about SEK 1bn (about £76 million) Their ABB Robotics system could be behind the high turnover and low manual workforce as the robots are work in packaging and palletising.

One of Europe’s most modern plants, it is also the largest importer of fair-trade and organic coffee as well as being the biggest coffee roasters in the Nordic region, and Löfbergs Lila is as automated as can be.

Thirty-nine people are employed to look over the factory line to ensure their coffee is reaches the company’s standards, and a large robotic system works to pack and send its 16,700 tonnes of coffee to distribution every year. Each package, in varying weights from 50 grams to six kgs, is grouped onto pallets for shipment.

Löfbergs Lila uses four robots for this process – the IRB640 robots, by ABB Robotics, which like a human has articulated arms to automatically take cardboard boxes from the line’s end and hand them over to a ‘Euro-pallet’. They can perform seven cycles per minute. As well as performing the cycle, the robot handles the empty pallets as well.

Installed in 2000, the IRB640 has been acclaimed by Löfbergs Lila as responsible for significantly decreasing work place injuries.

Known as the FlexPicker, this robot was installed in 1999. It is the robot responsible for handling the 250 gram bags of coffee, of which it processes four at a time. To fit 16 bags in a box, the FlexPicker lays them flat in a cardboard box until it leaves the final four standing – this ensures that it is making the most of  the space available.

Finally, the IRB6650 is assigned for ‘de-palletising.’ So, the robot might dismantle a packed box to cater for a different request – such as if a supermarket did not order a full box of one product but make a mixed order instead. Therefore, the IRB6650 will load a pallet full of different products to the two IRB640s – a rarely used but still useful tool.

Improving efficiency

Efficiency is the catchword of industry and robots bring efficiency in handling the repetitive tasks we would not expect a human to do, and robotics companies are always looking to improve upon it.

Improvements, such as in robotic manufacturer Bosch’s future plans, are in speeding up the product belt speed in line with a robot’s potentially faster performance. Developers believe that by lengthening the space from the robots’ station to the product on the conveyor belt, severe collisions could be avoided. Currently, robots are configured to pick at the shortest distance possible, but this can lead to disastrous impacts when fewer products are still unpacked at the end of the line. 

Also, by defining the area for the robots and conveyor belt, robots are less likely to encroach on another’s working space.

So by improving the layout, product placement, reach and belt speed, it is possible that the robots will consistently work without error or accident and lessen the chance of missing products for packaging.

Today, robots are modular and pre-built before they are installed at a packing plant. Foundations are usually unnecessary for today’s robots as they are too dynamic to be planted into the ground. Therefore, anchoring them is necessary.

The widely used Delta robot (like the FlexPicker and IRB340) is top mounted, and as such, uses very little floor space and is easily integrated. There are many design concepts that make robots easy to integrate, and which can even abolish some costs altogether.

Introducing robots to the production line still relies on human know-how to not only engineer the robot but to integrate them into a company’s current systems as well.

However, technical advances have been such that all a user has to do nowadays is place them perfectly in position and ‘plug and play’, concept which is central to today’s designs.

Further reading

Robot Food Tech
World's fastest robot
Packaging Gateway

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