At first look, palletizing ice cream cone bins doesn’t sound like a high-risk job. However when these bins weigh 35 to 40 kilos and have to be stacked shoulder-high, shift after shift, 5 days every week—you begin to perceive the pressure it places on folks.
That’s precisely what one main U.S. meals producer realized. They produce a variety of cones—waffles, sugar, and cake. Regardless of their scale and attain, what actually stood out to us was one thing else: their tradition.
This firm operates as an ESOP—an Worker Inventory Possession Plan—which suggests each particular person on the ground has actual pores and skin within the sport. From the entrance workplace to the manufacturing line, all of them personal a chunk of the enterprise. And when that’s the case, security turns into greater than a coverage. It turns into private.
Why automate?
It wasn’t a labor scarcity that drove their determination to automate palletizing. It wasn’t even about effectivity within the conventional sense. The spark got here from a really human place: too many shoulder accidents. Lifting heavy bins time and again, particularly to the highest of a pallet, was inflicting issues. The sort that takes folks out of labor and places long-term pressure on the crew. They didn’t need to look forward to the following harm. They needed to stop it.
So, they made a transfer. They selected to usher in a robotic palletizing system—to not substitute somebody, however to take away the danger from a job that simply didn’t make sense for folks to be doing anymore.
What made this a superb match?
The technical aspect was easy. The bins are hefty, they’re effectively inside the payload vary of a cobot palletizer. The corporate already had Common Robots on-site, so integrating one other one with our PE20 was acquainted territory.
However the actual match wasn’t about velocity or specs. It was about care. They weren’t attempting to remove a job. The palletizing job was simply certainly one of many dealt with by their crew. What they needed was to remove the harm danger. Plain and easy. Plus, the convenience of use of the programming interface allowed to upskill some operators who can now use the robotic.
A takeaway for meals producers
Automation usually will get evaluated by way of the lens of labor financial savings. However this story is a reminder: ergonomics matter. Employee security isn’t a smooth metric—it’s a robust motive to rethink handbook duties. Heavy lifting, repetitive motions, and awkward positions take a toll. And even in case you’ve acquired succesful folks in your crew, that doesn’t imply they need to be doing these jobs.
This isn’t about chasing buzzwords like “lights-out manufacturing.” It’s about fixing actual issues in actual vegetation, with sensible instruments that work.
And in case you’re operating a facility the place your crew is your biggest asset—like this one—you would possibly discover that the enterprise case for automation is stronger than you assume. For in-depth insights on the toll handbook palletizing can tackle an organization and the way automation can alleviate these strains, obtain our Handbook Palletizing Ergonomic Dangers book by trade professional, Carla Silver.
