Challenge
There was a clear need for automatic palletising of Castello cheeses at Arla Foods. However, traditional solutions such as free arm robots and pallet loaders were unable to ensure profitability in eliminating heavy, repetitive work for staff. Plus, it didn’t make the packaging of these products any more efficient.
With limited space available at the Gjesing factory, the free arm robots would have to be placed in an adjacent room, due to their long arms. The set-up would have required an overhead conveyor system from production to the robot room.
This revealed just how impractical the project was before it was ultimately shelved.
- Staff Challenges
- Repetitive Work
- Human error
- Cost
Solution
In contrast to the traditional free arm robots, the “Robot-In-A-Box” automation solution from SOCO System proved to be both ultra-compact and efficient. The gantry robot has a much smaller working area without compromising with the speed. Plus, the “plug and play” nature of the product meant there was no need for heavy and complex machines that demanded considerable resources.
The payback on the robot proved to be only 1 and a half years. Along with efficiency savings, this short investment horizon speaks for itself. A second robot was prioritised for the next annual budget as staff on adjacent packaging line had started to ask when they too would get a “work-horse” to simplify their daily routines!
- Staff enablement
- Run in parallel
- Minimise mistakes
- Audits
