ACCORDING to ABB, Sydney-based Power Plastics increased its output by 30 to 40% after it commissioned a packing robot.
Prior to the decision to get a robot, workers had to manually hand-pack 3000 polyethylene condiment bottles per hour, resulting in high labour costs and compromising health and safety.
The company had to pack 60,000 bottles in a day. The bottles come in 250ml and 500ml sizes, and in five different colours.
Skyrocketing raw materials prices, operational costs and workers’ compensation claims from repetitive strain injury (RSI) prompted Power Plastics to talk to ABB about getting a robot to do the job.
Sydney-based systems integrator Apex Automation and Robotics assessed the situation and found the client required a high degree of flexibility and the ability to handle diverse products.
It built a robotic cell based around the six-axis IRB 4400L robot, with a 2.43m reach and 30kg payload.
Two extrusion blow moulding machines and accumulation conveyors feed the bottles to the robot. The unit in turn picks up to 10 of the bottles at a time using an Apex-designed vacuum cup gripper.
The gripper picks up a row of bottles, spaces them, and places them upright on a stainless steel platen. It then rotates 180 degrees and repeats the process with a new row of bottles, placing them upside down between each bottle in the first row.
When the platen is full, the robot signals the operator who inspects the bottles, slips a plastic bag over them, seals it, and takes it to a pallet. While this is happening, the robot turns to the opposite zone to start working on another platen.
The client chose not to automate the entire line because it wanted an element of human inspection and quality assurance within the process. However, the robot has allowed the company to reassign five workers and two shifts to other tasks.
On weekends, when the plastic fabricator runs on a skeleton crew, it reported output improvements between 30 and 40%.
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