Food and Beverage Packaging March 2012 : Page 22Cover Story: Robots Machinery Technology current capabilities that demonstrate robots’ utility along the entire packaging line: • The identifi cation and detecting of unwrapped product and picking and placing it into the pri-mary packaging; • Automatic collating and loading those primary packages into a secondary package such as carton or fi lm multipack; • Automatically collating and loading those second-ary packages into cases, trays, or heat shrink / stretch wrapped bundles for palletization. More examples can be found in the sidebar on page 19. Rick Tallian, ABB Robotics’ (www.abb.com) busi-ness development manager for consumer industries in the U.S., cites the following developments as key driv-ers in robotic technologies and deployment: • Robot guidance from external sensors such as vi-sion systems including line scanners, color and 3D machine vision systems; • Ease of use technology to eliminate complex pro-gramming of robots; • Accurate robotic simulation of solutions eliminates risk and project shortfalls prior to designing and building equipment; • Hygienically designed robots that are able to han-dle raw, unpackaged product. That last point is what several of the experts selected as a major driver that opens up new portions of produc-tion lines to these automated systems. Robots at home in processing and primary packaging PHOTO COURTESY ABB ROBOTICS PHOTO COURTESY APPLIED ROBOTICS Primary performers: As these two examples show, robots have moved into primary packaging operations including some (upper right) designed for washdown. ‹ ‹ Futuristic and fl exible: Advances in end effector design and positioning accuracy means robots can gently pack bagged products into secondary packaging. will enable robots to be repro-grammed for completely dif-ferent jobs in minutes rather than hours. Packagers can use robots for short-run items as well as increase the number of jobs a robot can accom-plish from shift to shift,” he explains. “This multifunc-tional robot with minimal fi xturing will increase effi cien-cies and improve return-on-investment (ROI).” Dick Motley, senior account manager, North America distribution, FANUC Robotics (www.fa-nucrobotics.com) has seen dramatic advances in specialized integrator expertise, advanced simula-tion, enhanced safety, and better communication/ integration with other machine platforms. These improvements push speeds and overall capabilities forward toward “more sophisticated vision pro-cessing—even beyond the visible spectrum that the eye can see—and higher payloads such as for full-layer beverage palletizing,” he says. Motley is one of several robotics experts who pointed specifi cally to the role of—and improvement in—ma-chine vision systems that permit robotics systems to “see” better and perform more robustly. “The role of vision is becoming common in more and more robotic applications,” says Marceau. “This provides higher fl exibility and allows multiple ap-plications that might have not have been considered before. For example, we have been using this tech-nology for depalletizing imperfectly stacked bags and kegs. Vision systems can be used for applica-tions requiring recognition of products that vary in shape or are randomly oriented.” A number of packaging machinery vendors are employing robots in their machinery operations at various points on production lines including Brad-man Lake (www.bradmanlake.com). The company’s Nick Bishop, VP sales and marketing, identifi es these MARCH ‹ ‹ “Five years ago we saw robots being bagged when it came time for sanitization,” observes Clay Coo-per, Applied Robotics’ (www.appliedrobotics.com) corporate development manager -food and pack-aging. “Today, many robot manufactures have run the gauntlet of USDA acceptance [standards]” for caustic and high-pressure washdown. PHOTO COURTESY STÄUBLI 22 FOOD & BEVERA GE P A CKA GING 2012 WWW . FOOD ANDBEVERA GEP A CKA GING . COM Publication List Using a screen reader? Click Here |
