Dual Stage Robotic Palletizing & Dual Stage Robotic Palletizers
Many times situations exist where standard in-feed conveyors and robotic row picking do not fulfill the application requirements of your palletizing application. Examples of these situations could be: unstable products, column stacked products that produce and unstable unit load, a large variety of unit load patterns that change frequently, large product variations, and high volume case rates. For unique applications such as this, Bastian Robotics has configured a work cell with dual robot functionality.
Bastian Robotics has standardized and custom solutions that will meet the needs of your robotic layer building and robotic layer handling applications.
How Dual Stage Palletizing Works
The first robot retrieves product from the in-feed conveyors and builds a full layer of product on an intermediate layer building station. The second robot utilizes a custom designed, full layer End of Arm Tool (EoAT) to retrieve the layer of product from the layer building station and deposit it on the unit load
The full layer EoAT is versatile. It can contain the product by multiple means and combine these means to handle unstable products. An example is an EOAT that grips the full layer from the sides, allowing a top pick of the layer. The robot can first, lift the product a small amount off of the layer building table. The EOAT can then shuttle a retractable bottom underneath the product to assist with high speed transport. Once the robot has reached the unit load being built, the bottom retracts, releases the side pressure and deposits the full layer onto the pallet.
Dual Stage Palletizing Benefits
- Excellent ROI based on reduced labor and increased throughput
- Reduction of human or machine contact of unstable products
- A wide variety of unit load patterns
- Production rates up to 50 cases/minute/robot
- Accurate and repeatable product placement
- Improved quality of unit load build as less contact to the load minimizes vibration and instability
- Improved ergonomics by eliminating repetitive tasks
- Reduced impact to the unit load when handling light, unstable products
Another advantage of layer building is that it has the least amount of impact to the unit load that is being built. This is extremely helpful for column stacking of light and unstable product. Traditional robotic palletizing will make contact with the unit load 3 to 4 times per layer as it is depositing cases or rows of cases. Each one of these contacts introduces vibration and instability to the unit load. Layer palletizing only contacts the unit load being built once per layer, thus minimizing contacts that may disrupt the stability of the unit load.
Dual Stage Palletizing Applications
- unstable products
- column stacked products that produce and unstable unit load
- a large variety of unit load patterns that change frequently
- large product variations
- high volume case rates
Dual Stage Palletizing Specifications
- Throughput can reach up to 50 cases/minute
- One high speed layer building robot
- One layer handling and palletizing robot
- Case and pallet handling conveyors
- High picking accuracy and tool compensation can bring placement error down to 0.5 mm
- Robotic system interfaces with PC or PLC
Industries That Use Dual Stage Palletizing
Dual Stage Palletizing Custom End of Arm Tool (EoAT)
The example shown is a Custom End of Arm Tool that grips the full layer from the sides, allowing a top pick of the layer. The robot then lifts the product a small amount off of the layer building table. The EoAT then shuttles a retractable bottom underneath the product to assist with high speed transport. Once the robot has reached the unit load being built, it retracts the bottom, releases the side pressure and deposits the full layer onto the pallet.
Budgetary Dual Stage Palletizing Pricing
While pricing may vary depending upon the scope of the project simple dual stage palletizing cells can start near $150,000 USD.
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