Cobot Palletizing of Food Products
Our customer was looking for a system that could palletize cases of food product from 2 production lines at a max rate of 15 cases per minute. Reviewing the information provided by the customer and by doing a robot simulation, a 25Kg payload robot was needed. MESH Automation chose the FANUC CRX-25iA cobot for this application as it provided the right balance of speed, payload, and ease of use.
Project Challenges:
- Some products run at a higher cycle rate.
- Ability to handle multiple stack patterns.
- Columnar
- Alternating layers
To maximize the robot payload for the customers product, vacuum picking was chosen as the method to pick the cases. Utilizing two (2) VGP20 vacuum modules with suction cups kept the end of arm tool light at only 13 pounds. With 42 pounds of payload available this allowed MESH flexibility in picking multiple cases per trip when needed for higher throughput products. The infeed conveyor system utilized a pusher to justify boxes to one side before each pickup to make sure they were lined up.
Because the customer had some products that needed a higher cycle rate, it would require the CRX-25iA cobot to move faster than cobot speeds, so some safety fencing was needed in conjunction with the safety scanners and light curtains. With this added safety it allowed the system to do 7 trips per minute, while in standard cobot mode it was able to average 5 trips per minute. With the ability to pick multiple cases per trip and with more trips per minute, MESH was able to provide the flexibility needed to handle multiple stack patterns and multiple products with each system.
