News Release

Robotic palletiser for a leading food manufacturer by APEX Automation and Robotics

APEX Automation and Robotics have just completed the installation and commissioning of a Robotic Palletiser for a leading food manufacturer.

With minimal setup time, this robotic palletiser can run a variety of cartons at a production rate of up to 20 cartons/min or 1200 cartons/hr.

At the exit of the packer, the cartons are transferred on low friction accumulation conveyors and at the end, they are arranged and presented to the robot in the pickup station. The robot custom-designed gripper is sectioned and can pick and place up to 6 cartons in one cycle. The palletising positions for different products are pre-programmed, and once the product is selected, the robot follows a recipe.

A pallet conveyor, with pallet aligning modules in the palletising station, allows the forklift operator to load an empty pallet and remove the complete pallet without interrupting production.

The Robotic Palletiser was fully guarded with perimeter fencing, interlocked doors, light curtains and muting sensors. The safety circuit included redundancy and safety monitoring devices in accordance to the relevant Australian standards, in particular AS 4024.3301-2009 Robots for industrial environment – safety requirements.

A user-friendly coloured Touch Screen allows the operator to change the setup, run and troubleshoot the system.

There is increasing pressure on Australian manufacturer to be more flexible and capable of running a wide variety of products with minimum setup time. Apex Automation and Robotics have gained a reputation of developing innovative automation systems meeting these challenging requirements.