Robots fitted to cheese packing line

Two more robots are to be fitted to a cheese packing line in Lincolnshire where an initial installation proved the efficiency gains that could be achieved.

Two more robots are to be fitted to a cheese packing line in Lincolnshire where an initial installation proved the efficiency gains that could be achieved.

Robotic specialists from TEC Manufacturing in Melton Mowbray are preparing two Mitsubishi Electric RV6SL six-axis robots, vision systems and associate equipment and software ready for rapid installation immediately after Christmas.

Serving many of the large supermarket chains, the line works a relentless 16 hours a day, six days a week.

In December this increases to fever pitch, but is then followed immediately by its quietest period of the year.

"Feeding today's insatiable supermarkets requires food processors to be supported by the very best manufacturing technology and we have to constantly upgrade their systems, improving efficiency year on year," explained Tony Jones of TEC.

"For specialist cheese manufactures, we have to develop very flexible production systems because of the variety of product going through the plant".

The new robotic packing line for instance may spend the first hour of the day packing 200x4oz cheese wedges into transit cases, then switch in an instant to handling traditional 1-2lb cheese truckles going into individual presentation cases.

"When we were asked to develop the new line, we knew instantly that it would require a robotic solution, but installation had to be phased so that we could maintain continuity of supply to the customers," said Jones.

"It therefore made sense to treat the first stage of the project as a proving stage, measuring the efficiency gains and working out the best way to capitalise on these.".

He continued: "The finding included the fact that each robot could release four people from manual work on the packaging line, allowing them to be redeployed elsewhere in the dairy on tasks more rewarding to human intuitiveness and intelligence".

The RV-S series are the latest generation of 6-DOF (degrees of freedom) articulated arm robots from Mitsubishi Electric.

With repeatability of +/-0.05mm and speeds of up to 9,500mm/s the RV-12SL is one of the fastest and most precise robots in its class.

Their operational flexibility makes ideal for a wide range of industrial duties.

As well as packaging they can handle components in assembly and manufacturing applications, or used as transfer stations they allow for daisy chaining of production machines to create integrated yet flexible manufacturing system.

The RV6SL can lift payloads up to 6kg and has a reach of over 900mm.

It is the second largest robot in the RV range, which includes seven models offering payload capacities up 12kg and reaches up to 1.4m.

In Lincolnshire, the cheese is delivered to the robotic packaging stations via a flat bed conveyor which itself is fed by four wrapping machines.

This means that each wedge or truckle can be in any orientation and is positioned randomly on the conveyor.

To cope with this TEC integrated a Cognex vision system with the robot in which the camera is mounted directly over the conveyor upstream of the robot.

A photosensor alters the camera to each passing cheese so that its image can be assessed for orientation and position.

This information is passed to the robot in time for it to reach out to the correct position, pick up the cheese and rotate it to the correct orientation for packaging.

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