Food and Beverage at the "End of the Line"

As the pop­u­la­tion grows, the need for food and bev­er­ages becomes more sub­stan­tial. The food and bev­er­age indus­try needs to use every means nec­es­sary to speed up their pro­duc­tion and keep their lines rolling along smooth­ly to keep up with their competition.

Almost every prod­uct in the food and bev­er­age indus­try is stacked on a pal­let at the end of the pro­duc­tion line for ship­ping pur­pos­es. These prod­ucts are shipped to stores all over the Unit­ed States and world­wide. With the use of grip­pers and robot­ic pal­letiz­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers are able to move their prod­ucts at a faster rate while keep­ing every­thing intact.

As the indus­try has start­ed to switch from man­u­al to robot pal­letiz­ing, robots are being inte­grat­ed to meet the unique needs of the cus­tomers. With the advance­ment of robot­ic grip­pers, even the most unique pack­ag­ing can be picked up with­out an issue at the end of the line.

Due to the wide vari­ety of car­tons that are used in the food and bev­er­age indus­try, the pal­letiz­ing robots have to be fit accord­ing­ly with the appro­pri­ate end-of-arm-tool­ing. Some are fit­ted with grip­pers, such as ​“claw grip­pers”, that close around a box, pick it up and place it on a pallet.

Oth­ers are fit with vac­u­um grip­pers that suc­tion onto an item. Even small­er grip­pers are used when nec­es­sary, depend­ing on the size of the pack­age and its con­tents. This comes into play in the bev­er­age indus­try when glass bot­tles are being used. These bot­tles are now made of lighter weight mate­ri­als and not as strong as past bottles.

Anoth­er instance would be pick­ing up bagged items. Some bags may be stur­dier than oth­ers, but to reduce spillage, robot­ic pal­letiz­ing grip­pers have to be big enough to enclose the entire bag.

While the robot grip­pers are impor­tant, it is just as impor­tant that the robots be prepped for the some­times extreme con­di­tions that come with the food indus­try. The pal­letiz­ing of frozen food is a good example.

Robots can be pre­pared with spe­cial coat­ings and inner work­ings so that they can work in freez­ing tem­per­a­tures with­out being dam­aged or freez­ing up. This comes in handy when work­ing for hours with the hun­dreds of frozen food brand names that line neigh­bor­hood freez­er cases.

Robots​.com works with sev­er­al dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers to fit Motoman, KUKA, ABB, Uni­ver­sal Robots, and Fanuc pal­letiz­ing robots with the prop­er end-of-arm-tool­ing for the job. Whether pick­ing up a box, a car­ton, bag, or pail, the pal­letiz­ing robot can be fit with the prop­er tool­ing for the job you need done. It can also be altered to fit your unique work envi­ron­ment specifications.

If you are ready to start automat­ing your food or bev­er­age items at the end of your pro­duc­tion line, con­tact Robots​.com today online or at 877−762−6881. Our engi­neers and design­ers will work with you to come up with a cus­tom food and bev­er­age robot­ic pal­letiz­er to meet your unique needs.