Robotic case erector increases component packing productivity 300%

Radwell International replaces manual case erecting for shipments of small components with an automated system that randomly erects any one of six case sizes on-demand and without changeover.

The ROBOX case erector with two six-axis ABB robots can pick randomly from six case magazines.
The ROBOX case erector with two six-axis ABB robots can pick randomly from six case magazines.

Radwell International is a leader in stocking and selling surplus and refurbished automation, Maintenance Repair and Operating products (MRO), and pneumatic, motion, electronic, hydraulic, HVAC, and electrical control equipment for plant floor and facilities maintenance machinery.

Its new headquarters facility in Willingboro, NJ, is highly automated, with an inventory management system from AutoStore for handling smaller parts, a highly sophisticated order processing and shipping center, and two miles of automated conveyors.

Radwell has also automated a more routine element of its operation: case erecting. By installing a ROBOX robotic case erector from XPAK USA, the company has achieved significant efficiencies in its shipping of smaller components. The patented case-erecting method of the ROBOX system allows Radwell to randomly erect any box in their suite on-demand and without changeover.

In Radwell’s previous flagship facility, case erecting was done manually, with an order packer visually sizing up the most appropriate case size for a specific order from stacks of flat boxes. The process was time consuming and often resulted in the use of a case that was too big for the order, with packers tending to err on the high side so they wouldn’t have to retrieve and erect a new box if the original one was too small.

“With most major box carriers going to Dimensional Weight Pricing, it is important that we ship as little air as possible,” says Todd Radwell, Senior Vice President of Operations. “With the ROBOX system, our packers are better able to visually select the optimum box size because they are choosing from an array of constructed boxes.”

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