View news and innovations from PACK EXPO 2024
View all the latest news and innovations from PACK EXPO International 2024

Mobile and Collaborative Robots Ratchet Up Flexible Packaging

Cobots and autonomous mobile robots figured prominently at PACK EXPO Las Vegas, helping to provide more efficient packaging operations. In some cases, automation suppliers are even combining the technologies.

Kuka Robotics’ KMR iiwa combines its LBR iiwa lightweight cobot with a mobile, flexible platform.
Kuka Robotics’ KMR iiwa combines its LBR iiwa lightweight cobot with a mobile, flexible platform.
Kuka Robotics

If there’s one theme that appears in packaging almost everywhere you go it’s the need for flexibility. Much of the flexibility demonstrated at the latest PACK EXPO Las Vegas came in the form of robotics, especially autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and collaborative robots (cobots).

As part of the overall move to fulfill consumer demands, robot use continues to grow among consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs), with the automation technology being used across the packaging line from picking to palletizing, according to James Cooper, executive director of global accounts for Fanuc America, who spoke on PACK EXPO’s Innovation Stage. In fact, from 2017 to 2018, robot use increased almost 48% in food and CPG markets, and more than 31% in life sciences/pharmaceutical markets.

Although cobots make up a very small percentage of the robotics market today, they’re expected to account for more than a third of robot sales by 2025.

In its booth, Fanuc showed it new CR-15 cobot performing a logistics order fulfillment application, with the ability to pick up random items from a bin. The company’s new 3DV/600 area scanner enables the cobot to find objects in three dimensions, pick them from the totes, and place them somewhere else, noted Wes Garrett, an account manager for Fanuc. With two speeds, the robot can operate as fast as 1,500 mm/s but will slow down to 800 mm/s if a human worker is nearby.

A robot doesn’t have to actually be a cobot to be collaborative. ABB Robotics showed how its standard IRB 460 palletizing robot could incorporate SafeMove2 to make it a collaborative operation, enabling occasional interaction between robot and humans. As part of the demonstration, a camera system developed as a result of ABB’s acquisition of Spanish startup NUB3D provided information for the robot to create a more flexible environment.

“What we have is a system where the robot receives information from the cameras as to the next box to be palletized,” said Alan Spreckley, global industry segment manager for food and beverage at ABB Robotics. “The real value here is that we can now depalletize mixed pallets of products, which is particularly useful in e-commerce and warehouse distribution environments.”

In another palletizing example, Columbia/Okura partnered with Universal Robots (UR) to develop miniPAL, a mobile collaborative system that can address a range of applications in machine tending, palletizing, and packaging. The mobile setup makes it easy to move and redeploy the cobot to new processes.

In separate show news, UR upped the flexibility of its cobot lineup by adding a model that can lift up to 16 kg. The higher payload of the UR16e was developed after talking with OEMs and end users to better understand their needs—rather than the company’s typical push of product into the market, noted Jürgen von Hollen, UR’s president.

New e-book on Multipacking and Case Packing
Read how to extend the life of your case packing equipment and best practices for efficient shrink bundling operation. Plus, learn the differences between wraparound & regular slotted containers.
Read More
New e-book on Multipacking and Case Packing