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Colgate-Palmolive's robotic solution

Unusual for its ability to integrate three axes of motion, this robotic case packer is flexibile and fast.

The ER63's robotic head moves along three axes of motion to reach high speeds at C-P Europe's Compiegne plant.
The ER63's robotic head moves along three axes of motion to reach high speeds at C-P Europe's Compiegne plant.

Just north of Paris, in the French town of Compiegne, Colgate-Palmolive Europe’s largest plant is benefiting from the first installation of a high-speed case packer from French manufacturer Cermex, a member of the Sidel group represented in the United States by Cermex Inc. (Norcross, GA). According to Jean-Francoise Wyllie, operational support manager at C-P Europe, the new case packer brings a unique combination of speed, flexibility, and gentle bottle handling.

The ER63 case packer was developed for high-speed, high-production applications. At C-P Europe, it’s currently dedicated to a single, versatile line that fills liquid household cleaning and fabric-softening products into plastic bottles in a variety of sizes.

Capable of speeds to 330 bottles/min, the ER63 is a descendent of the Cermex ER60. That machine also features a “pendulum” robotic head. Its sole task is to lift bottles from an infeed conveyor, stroke back, and drop the bottles into corrugated cases that sit on a conveyor running parallel to bottle infeed. Its motion, powered by servo motors, is limited to two axes: up/down is one axis and perpendicular to the machine direction is the other.

What makes the ER63’s robotic head so different from the ER60’s is that it adds a third axis of motion. In addition to moving up and down and perpendicular to the machine direction, it also moves back and forth in line with the same axis along which the bottles and cases are conveyed. The entire robotic head, arm included, is mounted on an overhead guide rail, and a servo motor propels the whole piece along this machine-direction axis.

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