Choosing the right Robotic Palletizing and Forklift Trucking Solution
Do you have a palletizing operation which requires automation? Many logistics and warehouse companies especially within the food and beverage markets, have the potential to increase their productivity and free up their employees for higher value-added tasks by adopting Robotic Palletizing Solutions. Implementing this solution will make a big difference in labour, time to market and cost effectiveness.
Today, almost half of all working hours in logistics are spent on manual routine jobs. By 2035, automation will reduce that number to 35%. The solution to this evolution is the increasing deployment of AGVs and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).
Robotic-based automation ensures you get the flexibility, productivity and reliability you need to meet ever shorter product life-cycles, new packaging designs, multiple pack sizes & product variants, and batch manufacturing.
Traditional palletizing automation has several drawbacks. They are rigid, lack flexibility, unsafe and are difficult to program. Introducing robotic palletizing eliminates these downfalls by combining power and intelligence to raise throughput and quality.
Unlike conventional layer palletizers, a palletizing robot can easily handle mixed pallets with products of various sizes and shapes. There are also a range of end effectors that you can use to adapt your robot palletizing system to different objects, including vacuum and customised grippers and even unique grippers for specific applications.
Selecting the right robot for your application is critical, and that’s why we are here to help. The following factors: payload, duty, reach, cycle time, weight of products and floor space, all affect which robot is suitable for your project. Applied Integration have an in house digital twin team who can set up the process and make modifications in a virtual reality (VR) environment before being applied to the final system, avoiding risk and loss of production.
Working with our Partners
Applied Integration are proud to work with K.Hartwall, Universal Robots, MiR, UR, ABB and Omron/Techman who all offer some amazing solutions to robotic palletizing.
ABB have an expanded product range set to revolutionize robotic picking, packing and palletizing. The latest product introductions from technology leader ABB include two new palletizing robots, three palletizing grippers and an easy-to-use programming software – all designed to make palletizing simpler, faster and more efficient.
K.Hartwall has launched an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) known as A-Mate perfect for forklift trucking. This is the first fully electric free-lift pallet AGV with omnidirectional drive. The versatility and 360 degree safety of the A-Mate will bring a new level of automation into logistics. The innovative fleet management software allows the user to have full overview and control of the whole fleet. K.Hartwall’s A-Mate offers a load capacity of 1000kg and can lift 1 ton to a height of 1 meter and thanks to it its slim design, A-Mate can move freely in narrow aisles and within pallet stacks.
“We as a company, are proud to partner with some of the best leading companies to offer robotic palletizing”, says Peter Moore, Business Development Manager and Cobot Specialist at Applied Integration. “Through these partnerships, we are able to combine Applied Integration’s industry knowledge and our partners robots to create the best end of line robotic palletizing solution to suit your needs and requirements”.
Palletizing Digital Twins
Our digital simulation capabilities can be used to design your full robotic palletising solution. Through using this digital technology, we are able to highlight areas of concern before any build takes place. Digital simulation allows our clients to visually conceptualise the feasibility of their designs. The emulation stage then allows clients to test coding before it is applied to the real system.
The video below demonstrates a digital simulation of a robotic palletising solution that can be designed and viewed through Emulate 3D which allows you to do all the testing and interaction in a simulated world while the model is being built.
Applied Integration have ten years of experience in system validation and testing, virtual commissioning and digital twin creation using Emulate3D. We have demonstrated validation and testing of system designs using simulation models of the system, running for extended periods. We have incorporated failure scenarios by returning data from salient points highlighting any performance issues.
Contact our cobot specialist, Peter Moore, who will be able to advise and provide you with the best industry knowledge to help streamline your end-of-line packaging with a collaborative robotic palletizer.
Applied Integration is a leading systems integrator, specialising in delivering the latest industry technologies with a focus on Industry 4.0, Digitalisation, Internet of Things (IoT), Analytics, Big data / Cloud Technologies, Safety Critical Systems (SIL1, SIL2, SIL3) and Robotics and Collaborative Robots (Cobots). Founded in 2005, AI has a dynamic, 50+ strong engineering team with many years combined experience.
Learn more www.appliedintegration.co.uk