FDBusiness.com

Pacepacker Services has assisted a leading snacks manufacturer in increasing their output of packed crisp boxes with the installation of six Fanuc M-410 robotic palletising systems.  Palletising over 5,000 boxes of crisps per hour the robots have been integrated into ALL of the six packing lines within the company’s factory and enabled them to bring a previously outsourced packing operation in-house.

When it was no longer possible for manual stackers to accurately and safely palletise the packed boxes of crisps at speed, the international manufacturer of potato chips utilised Pacepacker’s expertise, as a FANUC Strategic Partner, to explore robotic palletising options. Pacepacker’s solution – the four-axis FANUC M-410 – was originally integrated into one packaging line to receive an in-feed from two separate production lines – with a combined output of 1,000 boxes per hour.

 A key factor to the success of this original installation was the FANUC M-410’s ability to handle multiple box sizes – up to 30 per production line – with no downtime between changeovers Paul Wilkinson, Business Development Manager, at Pacepacker Services, commented: “We incorporated vacuum technology onto the Fanuc to offer durability with the strength and capability to maneuver up to nine boxes at any one time. The robots were pre-programmed with a menu of different variations and recipes suited to the company’s needs so that the Fanuc could handle multiple box sizes with very little manual interfacing.” On the success of the initial installation a further four FANUC M-410 robots was ordered.

The final installation was made on a line packing the company’s boxes of multi-pack crisps – a new product offering recently launched by the snack manufacturer. Due to space constraints this new product was previously being packed by a third party co-packer – however this method was cost prohibitive.  Furthermore there was only space within the factory for one additional production line.  To overcome this issue Pacepacker offered a solution by incorporating a double vacuum gripper on to a Fanuc M-410 which has the capability of lifting an entire pallet layer of boxes from a single feed.  As a consequence the snacks manufacturer was able to bring the packing process of the multi-pack crisps in house. 

Paul Wilkinson continues: “Manual palletising is a labour intensive process which can provide inconsistent pack quality due to human error. By automating this process the Fanuc M-410 robots consistently creates an accurate and uniform neat stack of boxes while enabling our customer to make better use of their staff in other areas of production.

 With the installation of the final Fanuc M-410 on the new multi-pack crisp line they have been able to bring the process in house.  As a result of Pacepacker’s solution this single line is achieving the same throughput as the two line production process.”