All machines Machines Robotic Palletizing and Handling Cells
Robotics and Factory Automation
Robotic Palletizing and Handling Cells
2:12 Multi-line robotic palletizing and stretch wrapping. Filmed and published by FANUC America Corporation. Plays from YouTube, nothing here is re-hosted.
What it does
A palletizing cell is a robot arm, a gripper, a pallet position, a conveyor feeding it and a fence with an interlocked gate. It takes cases, bags, trays or bundles off the end of a packaging line and stacks them onto a pallet in a pattern that will survive a truck. The same cell shape, with a different gripper and a different program, does machine tending, case packing, depalletizing and order building.
How it works
The line pushes a case up to a stop. The robot picks it with a vacuum head, a clamp or a fork gripper depending on what the case is, then places it on the pallet at a taught position. A pattern file holds the layer layout, the number of layers and the interlocking, so a change of product is a change of file rather than a change of hardware. A slip sheet dispenser or a pallet magazine feeds empties in. Vision is added when the incoming stream is mixed rather than sorted, because then the robot has to work out what it is looking at before it can decide where to put it. Safety is either a fence with an interlocked gate or, on a collaborative cell, force limits and a scanner that slows the arm as a person approaches.
The numbers
Payload and reach set what a cell can do. Palletizing arms are commonly specified from about 50 kg to 700 kg payload with reach in the 2 to 3.5 meter range, which is what puts the top of a full pallet inside the working envelope. Cycle rates depend far more on the gripper and the pattern than on the robot: a single case pick is often quoted around 10 to 20 picks a minute, and a layer gripper that lifts a whole layer at once changes the arithmetic completely. Makers quote their own figures under their own test conditions, so treat a headline rate as a starting point for a real cycle study.
Who uses one
Food and beverage, packaging converters, building products, chemicals, pet food, warehousing and third party logistics. It is the single most common first robot in a plant, because the work is repetitive, the load is heavy and the pattern rarely changes.
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