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Cobot relieves operators of tedious task

Plastic bottle blow molder looks to automation to reduce labor required for stacking bottles in bins, allowing it to move employees to more meaningful jobs within the facility.

The cobot stacks bottles into a bin, replacing three operators over three shifts.
The cobot stacks bottles into a bin, replacing three operators over three shifts.

Established in 1984, Cox Container, LLC of Troy, AL, is a blow-molding manufacturer that supplies local, regional, and national customers with a variety of plastic bottles. The small, privately-owned company operates several blow-molding machines, 24 hours a day, in its 73,000-sq-ft manufacturing facility. Because Cox accommodates custom orders, including high-volume, low-mix and low-volume, high-mix jobs, it’s critical that both its operators and machinery are flexible.

Like many manufacturers in the industry, Cox has experienced difficulty hiring and retaining quality, skilled workers—particularly when it was trying to man a workcell where two employees were required to pack bottles into bins. The pace was too vigorous for one employee to keep up with, but not enough to justify a second employee. To solve that problem, the company turned to automation to fill the gap, boost factory productivity, and redeploy operators to higher-quality jobs within the plant.

It selected Sawyer, a collaborative robot from Rethink Robotics, as the solution. The robot has been deployed to assist a single employee with the packaging function, allowing the other employee to add value and participate elsewhere within the factory. Counting all shifts, Sawyer freed up three full-time employees, enabling them to do more meaningful work.

“We’re very particular about who we hire, so it’s been difficult to find quality employees,” says Cox Plant Manager Gary Fox. “With Sawyer, we’ve reduced labor needs by 50 percent in this particular workcell and reassigned three staff members to other areas of the company, giving them more valuable and meaningful work. As a result, our retention has improved significantly.”

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