Packing Dairy Cases with Stainless Steel Robots

KUKA Robot­ics installed the first stain­less steel robot in North Amer­i­ca. They placed a KUKA KR 15 SL stain­less steel robot into Dean Foods’ dairy prod­uct man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty. The KR 15 SL is used for the dairy case pack­ing process.

Because food man­u­fac­tur­ing requires strict steril­i­ty stan­dards, stain­less steel is the ide­al mate­r­i­al to meet these require­ments. Dean Foods wished to increase their case pack­ing pro­duc­tion, and with the imple­men­ta­tion of the KR 15 SL, the wash down require­ments were able to free four employ­ees. The robot does not require a pro­tec­tive suit, so it can be cleaned dai­ly by using var­i­ous acids and alka­lis with­out dam­ag­ing the surface.

The KR 15 SL is a six-axis artic­u­lat­ed robot with a high IP rat­ing. It has a reach of 1500 mil­lime­ters, and its wrist has a load-bear­ing capac­i­ty of 15 kilo­grams. The stain­less steel exte­ri­or makes it suit­able for all appli­ca­tions requir­ing hygiene, steril­i­ty, and absence of particles.

The KUKA stain­less steel robots open up a new range of poten­tial appli­ca­tions in the food and bev­er­age indus­try. The ease with which the robots can use their grip­pers to pick up meat, cheese, and oth­er food items of vari­able shapes and ori­en­ta­tions allows end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties of where the robots can be used.

Stain­less steel robots are great for ster­ile envi­ron­ments. If you would like to learn more about obtain­ing and inte­grat­ing a stain­less steel robot, con­tact us today online or at 877−762−6881.