When your product is frosting and your objective is to maneuver it—quick, clear, and with out breaking a sweat—you don’t wish to depart something to likelihood. That’s precisely why one bakery producer teamed up with Robotiq and Alba to automate their bucket palletizing course of. The mission? Stack a wide range of frosting bucket sizes onto CHEP and GMA pallets with out handbook labor or downtime.
Spoiler alert: mission achieved.
From handbook to automated, with out lacking a beat
The bakery wanted a greater option to palletize heavy buckets of frosting. The old-school methodology—manually stacking each side of the pallet—was inefficient and difficult on staff. To make issues extra difficult, they didn’t wish to dedicate employees simply to position empty pallets on the conveyor.
So, we introduced within the heavy hitters:
- Robotiq’s AX30 palletizing resolution, 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 outcome? A totally automated setup that palletizes 57 lb hundreds with precision—and 0 pressure on the workforce.
A sensible system with critical muscle
The actual magic was within the integration. Alba equipped a pallet dispenser that mechanically delivered empty pallets to the construct zone. From there, the AX30, enhanced with a seventh Z-axis, tackled palletizing with the attain and suppleness the appliance demanded.
To assist the cobot’s actions, Alba designed a conveyor system that did greater than transfer product—it made the complete course of smarter:
- A blade cease and backstop squared up pallets for correct choosing.
- An ultrasonic sensor on the fork truck pick-up zone ensured exact, protected unloading.
- A PanelView 800 HMI touchscreen gave operators full management over dispenser, construct, and pick-up zones.
With this technique in place, the road ran autonomously—requiring only a forklift driver to take away full pallets. Discuss 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 concentrate on higher-value duties.
Additionally they added:
- Interlayer sheet dealing with, for added stability throughout stacking
- Security scanners, partitions, and lightweight curtains to separate folks and equipment, retaining everybody protected
Lean Robotics in motion
At Robotiq, we observe the Lean Robotics methodology—Design → Combine → Function—to maintain automation easy, scalable, and good. This venture checked each field:
✅ Labor reallocation
✅ Improved ergonomics
✅ Versatile resolution 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 group’s time?
Let’s construct one thing higher, collectively.
➡️ Discuss with a Robotiq professional and begin designing your subsequent good automation transfer.
