Robots speed up food packaging productivity

Cheese manufacturing company, producing 350,000 tonnes/year, is using an 'intelligent' robot to make a significant impact on productivity and reduce labour cost.

With production output at 350,000 tonnes/year, Friesland Foods Cheese, one of Holland's longest established producers of cheese, needed to maximise packaging efficiency.

KH de Jong, part of Friesland Foods Cheese, and one of four Friesland packaging facilities in Holland, use FANUC Robotics robots on three packaging lines.

Over 350 tonnes of Edam, a traditional ball shape cheese produced in three sizes of 1.9kg, 1.7kg or 0.9kg, is packaged per week.

Delivered to the facility on trays carried in transportation racks, the cheeses are allowed to mature before the packaging process begins.

Each tray has capacity for 35 cheeses and ten trays are carried in each rack.

When cheeses have reached the specified maturing stage the rack is delivered to a buffer area at the start of the packaging line.

The buffer area has capacity for five full and five empty racks and automatically shuttles them into the de-palletising area.

* Accurate placing - a FANUC Robotics R-2000iB takes one full tray from the rack and places it onto a fixture where it then uses seven vacuum cups to locate a complete line of cheeses.

The cheeses are then accurately placed onto a conveyor with individual locations for each cheese.

Empty trays are then returned to the rack and the process begins again.

Project manager at KH de Jong, Christiaan Hallers, explained: "The first stage ensures the racks are always positioned correctly for de-palletising prior to being coated in the paraffin wax machine".

He told manufacturingtalk.com that this process relies on several intelligent features of the FANUC Robotics controller to ensure effective operation.

* Collision detection - collision detection is very important when removing the tray from the rack.

As the racks are used to transport the cheeses from factory to factory they can get damaged and we need to detect any indication of a stuck tray.

Bernard Bakker, head of the Technical Department said: "The torque of the robot's motors are continually monitored and any increase above expected torque within a programme is sensed and the robot stops instantly".

* Sensing - other features include being able to sense that all cheeses have been picked up with the vacuum grippers - if a cheese is left on the tray the robot is aware and returns the tray to the rack slowly to avoid dropping the cheese.

Also as the cheeses are not a uniform 'ball shape' the robot is able to perform a 'human like' wrist roll motion over the cheese to ensure a good contact is made with the vacuum gripper.

This roll motion also ensures cheeses do not stick to the tray.

Sensors on the conveyor provide a count to the robot to indicate the next available position to deposit the seven cheeses - this ensures the conveyor is kept full.

The conveyor transfers the cheese to a paraffin wax coating machine that produces the familiar Edam coloured protective coat.

After coating and in most cases wrapping in cellophane and labelling, the conveyor delivers the cheese to a FANUC Robotics M-710iC robot which has a specially engineered gripper with six individual pneumatically operated 'finger type' grippers.

Picking up three cheeses and rotating 180 deg to pick up another three the robot then places the six cheeses into a freshly erected box.

Rotating through 180 deg ensures that the labels are always positioned towards the outside of the box to avoid damage from contacting the top edge of the cartons internal separator.

Full boxes are released from the loading area and proceed to a FANUC Robotics M-410i palletising robot at the end of the line.

Hallers continued: "Using the M-710iC robot for the process of placing the cheeses in the box has helped greatly - in particular the robot is able to change its own gripper which weighs 40kg.

This was previously a two person job and took a lot more time".

* Productivity raised by 10% - the line has made a significant impact on productivity at KH de Jong and labour cost has been driven down.

Hallers said: "We operate two shifts and labour cost savings equate to 500h/week, in addition productivity has increased by at least 10%.

The system has provided us with a maximum capacity of of 3,600 cheeses/h/line.

Handling the trays was a potential injury risk area as the metal trays can get damaged and arrive with sharp edges.

Also quality has improved and, as the cheese is no longer handled manually, hygiene is maintained".

The implementation of robots into the KH de Jong facility has been well received by the workforce.

Management ensured that employees were involved and kept aware of the importance of remaining competitive by improving quality, productivity and reducing costs.

Overall the robots are well liked by employees who no longer have to carry out what they thought was an annoying packaging task.

Hallers concluded: "There are many positives about the systems we have installed but what we like about the robots is that we seem to keep learning about different functions and ways they can be used effectively.

Following a demonstration we were especially impressed by the speed of one robot, where other suppliers offered us two robots for the same amount of work.

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