Converter's automation install sweetens the deal

Pw 5105 Robots 5

Not only are robotics being used in the packaging process, but automation is also expanding opportunities in package manufacturing, as well. Since it opened in 1997, flexible package converter Coating Excellence International (CEI, www.coating-excellence.com) of Wrightstown, WI, had supplied the pink, poly-coated paper used to make sachets for Sweet’N Low brand sugar substitute. CEI supplied the paper to a printer, who decorated the material for Sweet’N Low.

Several years ago, Sweet’N Low investigated moving their package material sourcing to Korea to save money. “That would have meant that we would have lost the base product,” says CEI president Mike Nowak. Instead, CEI entered into an e-bid process to bring printing of the packet rollstock in-house.

It was then that CEI realized that to be competitive, it would have to speed the production process through automation. “One of the ways we found to speed the machines up was to get the rolls off the slitter/rewinder faster,” says Nowak. “That’s how the robot came into use. When we won the bid, Sweet’N low decided not to move the product offshore.”

As a result, CEI installed a Motoman (www.motoman.com) UP165 six-axis, vertical jointed-arm robot, with the help of systems integrator C3 Corp. (920/749-9944). After the package material is printed, it is placed on a slitter/rewinder to be cut into the required package widths. Rolls coming off of the slitter/rewinder can weigh anywhere from 100 to 120 pounds. Says Nowak, “Physically, it wouldn’t have been safe from an ergonomics standpoint to have people continually handling that kind of weight, so typically, we have to have some sort of manipulating arm. But it’s a difficult process to do very fast.”

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