Palletizing Collaborative Robots

Application

Packaging, palletizing

Integrated cobots

JAKA Zu 12

About the Company

One of the largest snack companies in the world with global net revenues of $25.9 billion and net earnings of $3.4 billion in 2018.

It makes and sells primarily snacks, including biscuits (cookies, crackers and salted snacks), chocolate, gum and candy as well as various cheese, grocery and powdered beverage products.

Company’s Challenges

It was hard for the company’s employees to manually handle heavy items and deliver them to the palletizing area for a few hours in a row every day.

Therefore, the company started looking for solutions to automate its palletizing and packaging lines.

Solution

Robotics equipment was added at a few locations in the palletizing line to transfer products on the conveyor.

To do this, the company chose JAKA Zu 12 cobots, that are arranged according to customer needs, with a maximum payload of 12kg.

Two JAKA Zu 12 robots were arranged between three conveyor lines.

When two of the lines are in production, each cobot is responsible for one production line.

When the lines are produced at the same time, one cobot is responsible for line #1, the other line #3, while both are responsible for the palletizing of line #2 together.

Final Thoughts

After pallelizing line was upgraded with cobots, the manufacturer was able to reduce labour costs and final prices for customers, as well as increase production and efficiency.

The high stability of the cobots, low threshold and excellent service led to subsequent orders and higher customer repurchase rates.

As for ROI, it took the company only two years to fully recover investment costs.