WITH strong national and international demand for product, a leading Australian manufacturer of packaged goods saw the need to overhaul its manufacturing plant in order to increase production rates and product consistency.
MAR proposed a concept including a number of key systems to be integrated as a complete turnkey solution, providing a system that incorporates the automated handling and packing of flow wrapped product, export cartons, shipper cartons and Australia standard and export pallets.
MAR’s engineers designed a system featuring product conveyor systems for accumulation, feed and positioning of flow wrapped product and export cartons with dual robots, at times working in conjunction, to assemble the cartons for loading. One robot is used for carton gluing assistance and primarily packing the completed layers of product into the cartons, while a another robot is used for picking and placing new flat cartons into the carton erector and picking and placing finished product from the erector to the pallet. The second robot also has a tool changer allowing the custom designed and built grippers for cartons and pallets to be interchanged for their specific task as an automatic operation.
The complete system comprises of multiple production cells, with both robots in each cell controlled by one controller. The system was first fully tested at MAR before the site installation at the manufacturing plant.
Since the implementation of the automated system, the manufacturer has reduced the overall labour content in the manufacturing process. They have obtained a user-friendly and easy to operate system that maximises floor space, meets project time line requirements, and eliminates OH&S issues.
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