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Labor shortages drive adoption of robotic carton loading

The addition of a vision-guided robotic carton loader for two-packs of ‘sliders’ at White Castle’s Covington, KY, plant helps alleviate challenges resulting from a tight labor market.

Two robots pick frozen two-packs of burgers from a conveyor and place them in cartons at 160 packs/min.
Two robots pick frozen two-packs of burgers from a conveyor and place them in cartons at 160 packs/min.

In a 2017 industry research report from PMMI Business Intelligence, The Evolution of Automation (download the executive summary), lack of skilled labor/labor shortages was positioned at the top of the list of drivers for plant floor automation in the packaging industry. This was certainly the case for White Castle Distributing LLC, which in 2016 switched from manual to robotic cartoning of its flow-wrapped burgers at two of its production facilities. Says Project Manager Brad Rife, “The labor pool seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the day, and it was that way back in 2016 as well.”

The plants involved were White Castle’s Vandalia, OH, and Covington, KY, facilities, which produce the fast-food burger chain’s “sliders” for retail sale. The latter plant produces four-, 16-, and 18-count cartons of the small, square burgers, which are flow-wrapped in two-packs in a frozen state.

In 2015, White Castle began investigating automating the carton-loading process, which required two to three workers per shift to accomplish by hand. “There were some ergonomic issues,” says Rife. “It’s a fairly repetitive process to load the two-packs into the cartons. But more than anything, it was the lack of availability of qualified workers. It’s just hard to get people.”

One of White Castle’s requirements for an automated system was it had be able to keep pace with the plant’s grill rate, plus an additional 10% to 15% for potential grill-rate increases. Essentially, Rife shares, the company was looking for a cartoner that could load 160 to 165 packages/min comfortably. As for a potential supplier, White Castle was looking for one with good serviceability. “We wanted service and parts readily available,” he says. “If we had any kind of issue, we wanted to be sure we could get prompt attention and not have to wait two to three weeks for parts or service personnel to help us. And really, the biggest driving factor as far as purchasing is we wanted something that was going to be dependable and reliable, and get the job done for us.”

Rife says the inspiration for automating the cartoning process came from viewing similar solutions at PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2015. After doing some homework on potential equipment, the White Castle team enlisted the help of an account executive at BluePrint Automation, who introduced them to some of BPA’s capabilities.

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Annual Outlook Report: Workforce
Hiring remains a major challenge in packaging, with 78% struggling to fill unskilled roles and 84% lacking experienced workers. As automation grows, companies must rethink hiring and training. Download the full report for key insights.
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Annual Outlook Report: Workforce