Robotic Automation Versatility

Robots bring ver­sa­til­i­ty to the process­es that they auto­mate. Automa­tion, espe­cial­ly in the food indus­try in process­es such as case pal­letiz­ing and pack­ag­ing, has led to increased pro­duc­tion rates and high­er accu­ra­cy and efficiency. 

Advance Brands offers cooked poul­try, beef, and pork, and while meat hasn’t been an indus­try typ­i­cal­ly known for pack­ag­ing automa­tion, it became a pri­or­i­ty at Advance Brands. Their inven­to­ry is pro­duced for spe­cial­ized cus­tomer orders, and automa­tion allows them to adapt to dif­fer­ent items, dif­fer­ent pack­ag­ing styles, and dif­fer­ent types of pack­ages. One of the auto­mat­ed lines in the plant can process up to 16,000 pounds per hour of chick­en nuggets or strips. This line feeds into three pack­ag­ing lines where the prod­ucts are pouched and sealed. 

The end-of-line oper­a­tions add to the plant’s ver­sa­til­i­ty: an auto­mat­ic pick­ing process picks and case-packs prod­ucts in pri­ma­ry pack­ages. The case is taped by a case seal­er, labeled with a print-and-apply label, and then its bar code is read by a pal­letiz­ing sys­tem to be guid­ed into one of four lanes. There, a robot from KUKA pal­letizes it accord­ing to the customer’s order. 

Pep­peridge Farm has one of the most mod­ern cook­ie pro­duc­tion sys­tems in the world, as every­thing is auto­mat­ed. The oven, prod­uct han­dling, tray fill­ing, bag man­u­fac­ture, fill­ing, and pack­ag­ing process­es are all com­plete­ly han­dled by robots. SIG Pack is the robot­ic sup­pli­er, and worked with Pep­peridge Farm to address its main prob­lem: stack­ing cook­ies is com­pli­cat­ed, and the demand for qual­i­ty was high. Along with the wide range of prod­ucts that need­ed to be pro­duced, automa­tion was the solution. 

One half of a two-lay­er cook­ie is tak­en from the cool­ing belt, coat­ed with choco­late, and then turned with the coat­ed side up. DELTA robots then join the two halves accu­rate­ly at a speed of 1300 pieces per minute. The robots then pick up the prod­ucts and lay them into the paper trays that are fed to them. The robots are fit­ted with Eth­er­net con­nec­tions allow­ing them to exchange data with one anoth­er, guar­an­tee­ing that the trays are always filled and cook­ies cleared from the belt. With 180,000 pack­ages leav­ing the sys­tem in 8 hours, the ben­e­fits of automa­tion are clear.

Automa­tion allows these food plants, along with many oth­er plants in a vari­ety of indus­tries, the ver­sa­til­i­ty they require to pro­duce their prod­ucts in an effi­cient and accu­rate man­ner. Robots​.com spe­cial­izes in robot­ic automa­tion inte­gra­tion and can pro­vide many exam­ples of robot ver­sa­til­i­ty. If you are inter­est­ed in inte­grat­ing a robot sys­tem into your facil­i­ty, con­tact us today online or at 877−762−6881.