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Continuous improvement with cobots and remote monitoring

Automation solutions come in many shapes and sizes, and, recently, more food and beverage manufacturers are identifying ways to implement collaborative robots and remote monitoring.

After grabbing foodservice-style bags of vanilla cream product from the filling system, the cobot inserts the product one bag at a time into cases. The payback time of the investment in the cobot is about six months, says Johan Linné, site manager.
After grabbing foodservice-style bags of vanilla cream product from the filling system, the cobot inserts the product one bag at a time into cases. The payback time of the investment in the cobot is about six months, says Johan Linné, site manager.

As food manufacturers identify opportunities for improving plant-floor operations, automation suppliers keep developing a range of solutions to meet the needs of both large and small facilities. One budding solution, collaborative robots — cobots — is helping to sustain a growth pattern for robotic technology. In 2017, nonautomotive robotic orders increased by 20.5 percent regarding total units and 7.3 percent in dollars, according to the Robotics Industries Association.

“What I find most telling about these results is not simply that the automation market continues to grow, but that it’s growing in such a wide variety of industries,” says Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation.

For many years, consumer packaged goods companies dodged robotic investments due to a significant capital expense and integrating substantial robots in small plant footprints. A new application at Sweden’s Orkla Foods demonstrates how cobot technology from Denmark-based Universal Robots can be integrated into small production footprints. 

The Orkla Foods factory produces vanilla cream for the Swedish market, and the company wanted to automate the next step on its production line after a SIG Combibloc CFA 712 filling machine finishes depositing product into a clear, foodservice-sized plastic bag. The servomotor -driven UR10 cobot captures one filled bag at a time and places it into a case carton — case erector and sealing system. The cobot works independently from the filling machine and the case erector systems.

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