Limited investment for flexible packaging
For a leading US flexible packaging manufacturer, it was necessary for ergonomic reasons to automate the palletising of their four production lines. However, the feed rate of filled cartons was not high, so the overall investment had to be contained. Avoiding expensive peripherals such as empty pallet destackers and infeed and outfeed conveyors for empty and full pallets was essential to make the project feasible.Limited investment for flexible packaging
Stacking cardboard boxes with intermediate sheets
To meet these requirements, it was decided to deploy a robot for palletising. This robot had to have a large enough working range to be able to both take empty pallets from a stack and place them on the palletising positions, as well as take cardboard sheets from a warehouse to place on the empty pallets and between layers of cardboard boxes.
The Spider palletiser for cardboard boxes
The choice fell on the Spider Palletiser. By making the portal frame sufficiently long, the four pallets to be stacked could be arranged side by side, with space for the stack of empty pallets and the magazine for intermediate sheets. Because of the low supply speed of the cardboard boxes, it was possible to work with one pick-up point of the boxes. Using a barcode scanner, the boxes were identified and then picked up one by one and stacked on the pallets.
Advantages of the Spider gantry robot
The Spider gantry robot offered several advantages for the manufacturer:
Conclusion
By using the Spider gantry robot, the US flexible packaging manufacturer was able to efficiently automate its palletising process without making a high investment in expensive peripherals. The robot offered a space-saving and quickly installable solution, resulting in minimal production line downtime and a smooth palletising process. This case study illustrates the benefits and applicability of the Spider gantry robot in similar production environments for stacking cartons.Reliability: the Spider gantry robot is robustly built and constructed with highly durable components.