Hennopack double Fanuc robotic palletizer integrated sweep code recognition sorting systems help automate bulk food warehousing
THE CLIENT/PRODUCT
With the advantages of the raw material site and the innovation of various bulk food flavours, this bulk processor in Henan Province, China, has become a major supplier of bulk food to major supermarkets in China, involving pastries, confectionery, dry goods, etc.
THE CHALLENGE
For this bulk food processing plant, it has more than twenty kinds of products; when facing different supermarkets, or different regional sales channels, they often have different packaging or taste, although they are the same product, at the same time will have five different packaging methods;
Secondly, the packaging of these bulk foodstuffs, due to the specificity of the volume of the equipment, is generally packaged in buildings on the 2nd floor, 3rd floor and other floors above; for the client logistics turnover warehouse stacks carton pallets located on the ground floor, in the past, the customer is required to invest a lot of manpower and material resources to transport turnover to the lower floors.
According to the calculation of the order output provided by the customer, there will be 50 boxes – 60 boxes of bulk food per minute which weigh 10kg; according to the previous manual palletizing and sorting, there will be damage to the outer boxes of goods; wrong product classification, etc.; resulting in an increase in the subsequent cost of the enterprise.
This client has always sought the best productivity and quality methods to remain competitive and reduce production costs; for the equipment solutions involved in the product packaging process, they also wanted an end-of-line palletizing solution with the same objective in mind
THE SOLUTION
In the early stage, we first converged all the cartons from other floors on the second floor, and then the Henno packaging team of engineers custom-designed a spiral conveyor line to transfer the products vertically from the 8m high first-floor location to the ground floor to deal with the height drop transfer solution.
For the mixed carton box feeding type, Hennopack designed and installed an automated scanning and identification conveyor system to feed case into 5 picking lanes of 2 Fanuc robotic palletizers to stack. This case scanning and identification sorting solution is a stand-alone database designed by Henno Packaging engineers tailored to the client’s existing product, and can also be extended for subsequent expansion of the customer’s product line. Dozens of products recipes have already been populated into the system and the scanner will recognize the barcode data on the side of the carton and automatically allocate the carton to the appropriate lane for palletizing.
The logistics manager was very impressed with the Henno Packaging solution “From the first day we met about the database picking and scanning identification system, it was clear to us that it was designed in line with the future direction of warehouse storage automation, very intelligent and sustainable upgrade; especially for our multi-size, randomly produced products, its solution will manage our warehouse packaging process even better”
The results
*Increased production speeds, Lowered production costs
*Improved packaging quality and protection of potential profits
*An automated solution eliminated the need for manual labor
*Optimised warehouse processes for faster and more accurate turnaround
In terms of their production operations, “the need for 4-5 people to replace broken cartons has been completely avoided, and the cost of packaging materials has been effectively controlled”, the plant’s automation department manager continues, “all cartons are merged together for identification and sorting, which avoids secondary damage to the manual turnover of cartons; it also protects the health of the staff and improves efficiency.”
The client plant manager also says “With the investment of this automated sorting and identification palletizing line, we only need to equip two forklift masters for the turnover of load pallets and the replenishment of empty pallets to the palletizing machine, so the overall labor cost is less than a quarter of the original; in terms of speed and variety expansion, Fanuc robots are used for palletizing, and the stability of the whole line is recognized in terms of quality; the data system has been expanded by 20% capacity at the same time, which will allow the factory to continue to increase product output in the future development to meet production”
An incorrectly packed carton will cause the line to shut down, guaranteeing the right piece count or Identity always leaves their facility. Learn how Hennopack can help you achieve similar palletizer results. Schedule a call with us.
