Tomato Grower Automates Palletizer to Stack Higher, Faster

To maximize how much product could fit on a truck for shipment, Canadian tomato farm Cecelia Acres wanted to stack its pallets higher than its employees could comfortably handle. A Kawasaki CP180L robot integrated by Caxton Mark did that and more.

With new end-of-arm tooling designed by Caxton Mark, the Kawasaki palletizer is able to grab and stack boxes without crushing the fragile tomatoes inside.
With new end-of-arm tooling designed by Caxton Mark, the Kawasaki palletizer is able to grab and stack boxes without crushing the fragile tomatoes inside.
Caxton Mark

Does anybody really like to start a math test with a story problem? I apologize, but here goes…

A large-scale farm packages its cocktail tomatoes in 2 lb top-seal bowls, 12 of which fit into what’s called a deep veg box. To achieve the greatest amount of volume on the truck that carries those tomatoes to a produce partner, the grower wants to stack the boxes 11 high on a skid, with 55 boxes on each skid. Each box measures 8.5 inches high, so one stack measures almost 8 ft tall, not counting the skid that it’s standing on. Just one man on a team of stackers is barely able to get the last 25 lb box to the top of each stack, holding the box at one corner so he can throw it up onto the last layer. Others have been known to use other pallets as steps to reach high enough.

Question: How long is this palletizing operation going to be sustainable?

Answer: It’s time for a robotic solution.

This was essentially the math problem presented to Caxton Mark, a Canadian robotic integrator based in Leamington, Ontario. The integrator was helping Cecelia Acres, a Kingsville, Ontario-based tomato grower, deal with ever-increasing production goals along with high labor and shipping costs. In the end, automating palletizing operations with a Kawasaki CP180L robot increased throughput, eliminated ergonomic concerns for employees, and helped deal with the kinds of labor issues that manufacturers are seeing throughout their operations.

The robotic system also enabled Cecelia Acres to get the most out of its shipments to the distributor. “We designed the system for them to maximize the space in the trailers of the semis,” says Gino Fratarcangeli, director of operations for Caxton Mark. “So when they fill a truck, it’s as high as it can go without wasting space or wasting product.”

Certainly, the ability to consistently add that 11th box to the top of each stack without putting undue strain on one worker served to provide motivation for the change. But there’s more to it than that. “The robot doesn’t call in sick, the robot’s never late, and the robot does repetitive motion,” says Robert Chapman, director of automation for the Hazel Group, a group of three farms that includes Cecelia Acres along with Heritage Farms and Hazel Farms. “So I don’t have to worry about compensation, or he’s tired, or he’s slowing down, anything like that. It’s a steady pace and away we go.”

Far from concerned about robots eliminating jobs, the Hazel Group has difficulty finding reliable workers for the jobs it has, Chapman notes. “We’re bringing more offshore workers in because we know they’re going to be here for a term,” he says. “Whereas we can’t find locals—one day they’re here, next day they’re gone, we don’t know if they’re coming in. They want to go home, they just got here. Most of the time, it’s just we can’t find help.”

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