A plant addition, necessary for the balance of the automated line, was designed to also permit quicker service to Pratt & Lambert United's customers. In the past, all pallet loads had to move first through the warehouse and then to loading docks. With the new room, the trip through the warehouse can be eliminated.
Once the cases are sealed and printed, they travel through a wall and into the large new room. Cases are conveyed to the end of the conveyor that serves as the staging area for the Model M400 robotic palletizer from Fanuc (Auburn Hills, MI). This part of the line was engineered by Pacmation (Columbus, OH).
The Fanuc palletizer was selected because it does so much in a small footprint, states Loren Wallace, assistant plant manager. Not only can the suction cups on its arm pick up and deposit heavy cases in programmed position on a pallet, but the arm also picks up a device that grips a wooden pallet and carries it from a stack to the pallet building table. As well, the palletizer can be programmed to do two different loads simultaneously. That will be important once the plant gets its second line up and running.
