The Challenge

A labor intensive operation that involves palletizing bundles of books by hand was becoming a nighmare for this large scale printer.  Not only are the bundles heavy, but hot, as they emerge out of a heat shrink tunnel just prior to palletizing.  Worker injuries were rampant, leading to multiple worker's compensation injuries and claims. Using temporary workers was found to be un-reliable, resulting in difficulties in forecasting accurate production quotas. Either way, it was nearly impossible to keep workers on this job!

The Solution

Smart Motion Robotics designed and manufactured a system to handle both operations using a single FANUC M410i/A robot, and pallet conveyors & a pallet magazine, which the robot pulls empty pallets from, and puts the empty pallet on the pallet conveyor.  Once the empty pallet is ready, the robot then palletizes the bundles into a complete unit load, and the pallet conveyor indexes the load out of the robot cell.

Use of a FANUC Robotics’ system combined with the pallet magazine and pallet conveyor resulted in a fully automated palletizing system, which helped to assure more consistent product quality than either manual palletizing systems or traditional palletizing automation.

The key to making these systems productive is: 1) maximizing system reliability, 2) understanding the overall processes being performed and 3) integrating both process control and monitoring into your existing plant-wide production system.

To achieve maximum reliability, our process engineers start with standard products and combine them with whatever custom-engineered components are necessary to tie the system together and make it work effectively with the balance of your operation.


 

Robot picking pallet...

Call Smart Motion Robotics, Inc. at 847-836-7744 for more information on this solution. Ask about our FREE CD offer