New Processing Equipment: January 2023
Robotics and automation are changing the snack and bakery production landscape by providing a more consistent product, improving workplace safety, and freeing up employees for other tasks. The technology allows bakeries to run production lines at faster speeds and with more accuracy than ever before while taking up less space.
Company: Apex Motion Control
Website: apexmotion.com
Equipment Snapshot: Recently introduced at IBIE 2022 in Las Vegas, the Dough-Bot Stamper automatically stamps and cuts cookie dough as it travels down a conveyor with a multi-port head, then transfers the cookie dough shapes on to trays that travel to the oven to get baked. Small footprint, custom-designed die head, and ability to safely work alongside humans are a few of the features.
Company: BluePrint Automation
Website: blueprintautomation.com/en/
Equipment Snapshot: Spider 100v Product Loading with Bulk Feeding uses delta-style robots with vision to replace a traditional collate-and load-system. Suited for overwrapped baked products, the system eliminates race track collation and potential jam points, picking virtually any product count or configuration. With the integrated bulk feeder, it accepts product from bulk or work in process (WIP) singulating product before entering the robot. It handles cartons, cases, shelf-ready, and variety packs.
Company: FANUC America Corp.
Website: fanucamerica.com
Equipment Snapshot: The CRX-25iA collaborative robot has a 25kg payload, one of the highest available. Easy to use, the cobot stops at the slightest contact with a person or object, powers with 120V, and comes maintenance-free for eight years. The cobot’s speed is 1,000 mm/sec in collaborative mode and 2,000 mm/sec in high-speed mode, making it suitable for a variety of material handling and palletizing applications. It also provides through-arm cabling with optional vision and force-sensing intelligence. In addition, the cobot is rated IP67 and offers optional food-grade grease.
Company: Yaskawa Motoman
Website: motoman.com/en-us
Equipment Snapshot: Featuring a 30 kg payload and 1,700 mm maximum reach, the six-axis HC30PL human-collaborative robot facilitates safe and efficient fence-less palletizing, and other handling, packaging, and logistical applications. It features standard food-grade grease and IP67 environmental rating, plug-and-play wrist connection and ISO 9409-1 tool flange, hand-guided teaching, and six-axis power and force limiting technology. The manipulator meets safety standards to ensure safe operation in close proximity to human workers.
Company: Soft Robotics
Website: softroboticsinc.com
Equipment Snapshot: mGripAI is an easy-to-integrate automation package that combines ultra-fast 3D vision and artificial intelligence technologies with IP69K-rated, soft grasping to give industrial robots the hand-eye coordination of humans. This enables the use of high-speed industrial robots to automate bulk picking processes throughout bakery, produce, and prepared foods operations.
Company: Stäubli Robotics
Website: staubli.com/us/en/robotics.html
The TS2 HE four-axis SCARA pick-and-place robot features a new hygienic design for applications in humid environments that opens up a wide range of uses for SCARA (Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arm) robots in critical food processing environments where there is a high risk for contamination and bacteria development.
Company: JLS Automation
Website: jlsautomation.com
The Peregrine's end-of-arm tooling gently picks up and loads packaged snack cakes and other baked goods into formed cartons. With a small footprint one-third the size of traditional top- and end-load cartoners, the Peregrine places carton forming, loading, and closing inline to save valuable floor space. The system's high-speed JLS TRAK and positive carton transport (PCT) system eliminate problematic handoffs and the need for any other conveyors to move cartons away from the former, to accumulate, or manage the loading process. Cartons are kept in-line, without turns—from forming to loading, all the way to robotic closing.
Company: Robotiq
Website: robotiq.com
The Robotiq Palletizing Solution allows users to create an automation program in three quick steps, lets products palletize themselves, and frees employees to perform higher-value tasks. Synchronized motion control of the cobot and seventh axis create efficient cycle times. With total compatibility between elements, users get a small footprint that fits existing floorplans.