In every manufacturing company, there are jobs that could be done by a robot. Changing everything at once is unrealistic, so choices must be made. The question is: where do you start? Robots can take over jobs that are Dull, Dirty and Dangerous. We use these three Ds as a benchmark to decide where to start automating from the perspective of the employees' best interests. In addition, efficiency improvements and cost savings are important issues to consider when preparing an investment.
Hellebrekers has specialised in three tasks within the food industry where a robot equipped with vision replaces human workers - palletising, depalletising and singulating.
Safe and stable transportation starts with proper palletising. Palletising is the process of loading materials onto a pallet for storage and goods transport. Nowadays, pallet loads increasingly comprise different products (‘mixed case pallets’ or ‘rainbow pallets’). Fully automatic palletisation of these mixed case pallets is achievable with Hellebrekers' automation solutions. Roboticising this process brings several benefits.
Increase in efficiency
Robots palletise faster and more accurately than humans. They make virtually no mistakes and can work continuously all day and every day. There are several types of palletising system, ranging from standard to fully custom-built. Integration with an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) system that moves the full pallets to a pre-programmed end point makes the whole operation even more efficient.
Improved working conditions
Long hours stacking heavy boxes or crates by hand can cause back problems and neck pain. A robot does not suffer from these complaints and can lift, move and put down higher weights than humans may legally handle. Also, the robot takes over the monotonous work of stacking boxes all day long. Employees can now focus more on the production process.
More consistent output
Robots are programmed to perform tasks in a consistent and accurate manner. This means that pallet loads are assembled the same way, improving the quality of the final product. A robot has no fatigue issues and does not suffer from a loss of concentration that can lead to human error.
Increase in flexibility
Robots can easily be programmed to palletise different types of load in different ways without requiring major changes to the robot. This means that a robot can be easily integrated into different production lines and adapted to meet the requirements of each production line.
Filling vacancies
There is a severe shortage of human staff willing to do this work. The use of a robot allows companies to fill vacancies that would otherwise remain open. An additional advantage is that the annual running costs of a robot (energy and maintenance costs) are lower than the annual cost of an employee in the same position.
Ability to do more with the same workforce
The cost of an average production worker is around 50,000 euros per year. Despite the initial investment, deploying a robot to take over this work quickly pays for itself. After all, a robot can work 24/7 and its annual cost is lower than that of an employee. The employee it replaces can also be assigned to other positions and tasks in the production process. In other words, the company can do more work with the same workforce.
The choice of palletising solution that is the most efficient for your situation is largely determined by three factors. Each factor requires the right questions to be asked. The answers to all these questions largely determine which robot, gripper and vision system are needed. The entire palletising process consists of all the activities required to stack products on a pallet or on a slipsheet (unitising). The automation solutions from Hellebrekers Industrial Automation let customers fully automate their palletising process.
Detailed breakdown of the task and products
Before a robot can get to work, it must ‘know’ what it will be processing. Either in terms of hard numbers or images.
Details of the sequence and arrangement
The second point concerns the supply of the products to be palletised that arrive via the incoming conveyor belt. This, and how they are to be placed on the pallet, greatly influences the design.
Analysis of the speeds
The speed of the production line and the speed of the palletising station must be well matched to each other.
The main difference between palletising and depalletising is the purpose of the process. Palletising involves stacking a load to prepare it for transport or storage. Depalletising, on the other hand, involves removing loads from a pallet to sort them and make any changes required for further distribution and storage processes. It is somewhat similar to palletising, but often involves pallets loaded by outside parties. So there may be a lack of logic in the assembly and all kinds of different items may have been loaded on the pallet.
The vision software must be able to detect all the items individually for pick-up by the robot and placement on the belt. In this case, there is a greater focus on the materials (what to pick up) and the arrangement requirements (how to pick it up and place it) than on speed.
Singulating is separating the individual items of products delivered in bulk and then laying them out in a predetermined manner. Singulation uses a Vision system in combination with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and, where appropriate, machine learning (ML).
AI and ML are needed when programming all the positions, sizes, weights and surfaces of the items in advance is not possible. The AI component autodidactically generates new insights and, after completing a learning process, is capable of making its own decision on how to pick up an item.
