With strong national and international demand for product, a leading Australian manufacturer of packaged goods saw the need for an overhaul of its manufacturing plant in order to increase production rates and product consistency.

High labour costs were a result of four production lines operating around the clock, with staff producing and packing flow-wrapped product in a variety of sizes for domestic and international export. Operators were required to sort and pack the product into cartons, then assemble, seal and palletise the cartons. One operation required product to be manually inserted into a marketing box prior to being inserted into a shipping carton – the whole manual system was a very labour intensive operation that allowed a sizeable margin for inconsistency and error.

Part of a larger initiative, the project provided a solution aimed to increase product consistency and output capacity, reduce overall operating costs and eliminate safety issues associated with manual handling tasks within the packaging facility. At the same time existing production targets needed to be maintained while providing a solution that allowed increased production to coincide with planned changes to upstream equipment at the plant.

MAR proposed a concept including a number of key systems to be integrated as a complete turnkey solution, providing a system that incorporates the automated handling and packing of flow wrapped product, export cartons, shipper cartons and Australia standard and export pallets.

MAR’s engineers designed a system featuring product conveyor systems for accumulation, feed and positioning of flow wrapped product and export cartons with dual robots, at times working in conjunction, to assemble the cartons for loading. An ABB robot is used for carton gluing assistance and primarily packing the completed layers of product into the cartons which are located in the erector during this process. Another robot is used for picking and placing new flat cartons into the carton erector and picking and placing finished product from the erector to the pallet. The robot also has a tool changer allowing the custom designed and built grippers for cartons and pallets to be interchanged for their specific task as an automatic operation.

The complete system comprises multiple production cells, with both robots in each cell controlled by one controller. This allows a reduction in floor space requirements. The system was first fully tested at MAR before the site installation at the manufacturing plant, ensuring that MAR’s high quality standards were met, while allowing any challenges to be identified with no downtime at the manufacturing plant.

Automating the sorting process allowed staff to be reallocated to more value-adding tasks, as product is automatically sorted into rows/columns to form a complete layer of product prior to inserting into the carton. Cartons are automatically assembled and glued using a combination of robotics and carton erection equipment. The system also date stamps & palletises the finished product and moves new pallets into position for palletising, all which were originally manual operations. Operators monitor flat carton magazines and pallet magazine levels to ensure they are sufficiently stocked for automatic operation and unload finished goods pallets.

The manufacturer’s key objectives have been met. Since the implementation of the automated system, the manufacturer has reduced the overall labour content in the manufacturing process. They have obtained a user-friendly and easy to operate system that maximises floor space, meets project time line requirements, and eliminates OH&S issues.

MAR's experience with such systems provided a perfect background to ensure seamless system build, installation, integration, commissioning and continuous system support is provided.

For more information on MAR and automation and robotic solutions, please call us on 02 9748 7001, or visit www.machineryautomation.com.au