When your product is frosting and your aim is to maneuver it—quick, clear, and with out breaking a sweat—you don’t need to go away something to probability. That’s precisely why one bakery producer teamed up with Robotiq and Alba to automate their bucket palletizing course of. The mission? Stack quite a lot of frosting bucket sizes onto CHEP and GMA pallets with out guide labor or downtime.
Spoiler alert: mission achieved.
From guide to automated, with out lacking a beat
The bakery wanted a greater solution to palletize heavy buckets of frosting. The old-school methodology—manually stacking either side of the pallet—was inefficient and hard on employees. To make issues extra sophisticated, they didn’t need to dedicate employees simply to position empty pallets on the conveyor.
So, we introduced within the heavy hitters:
- Robotiq’s AX30 palletizing answer, powered by the UR30 cobot, able to dealing with payloads as much as 70 lb (32 kg).
- Alba’s conveyor and pallet dispenser system, engineered for reliability and seamless integration.
The consequence? A totally automated setup that palletizes 57 lb masses with precision—and 0 pressure on the workforce.
A sensible system with severe muscle
The actual magic was within the integration. Alba provided a pallet dispenser that robotically delivered empty pallets to the construct zone. From there, the AX30, enhanced with a seventh Z-axis, tackled palletizing with the attain and adaptability the appliance demanded.
To assist the cobot’s actions, Alba designed a conveyor system that did greater than transfer product—it made the whole course of smarter:
- A blade cease and backstop squared up pallets for correct selecting.
- An ultrasonic sensor on the fork truck pick-up zone ensured exact, secure unloading.
- A PanelView 800 HMI touchscreen gave operators full management over dispenser, construct, and pick-up zones.
With this method in place, the road ran autonomously—requiring only a forklift driver to take away full pallets. Speak about environment friendly teamwork.
15 pallets per hour, zero fuss
With repeatability baked in and heavy lifting dealt with by the cobot, the system now delivers as much as 15 full pallets per hour. That is 2,736 lbs of frosting goodness per pallet, effortlessly moved and stacked, whereas operators deal with higher-value duties.
In addition they added:
- Interlayer sheet dealing with, for added stability throughout stacking
- Security scanners, partitions, and lightweight curtains to separate folks and equipment, maintaining everybody protected
Lean Robotics in motion
At Robotiq, we observe the Lean Robotics methodology—Design → Combine → Function—to maintain automation easy, scalable, and sensible. This challenge checked each field:
✅ Labor reallocation
✅ Improved ergonomics
✅ Versatile answer for various bucket sizes
✅ Quick deployment
✅ Clean integration with Alba’s conveyor tech
It’s a textbook instance of how collaboration turns challenges into candy victories.
Received repetitive duties consuming up your staff’s time?
Let’s construct one thing higher, collectively.
➡️ Speak with a Robotiq knowledgeable and begin designing your subsequent sensible automation transfer.
