Serving as the backbone to packaging operations, today’s palletizers and depalletizers incorporate flexibility, speed, high performance and safety to ramp up operations.

The autonomous robot optimizes eCommerce fulfillment, reduces costs and improves the customer experience.

The redesign project was necessitated by industry demand from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and end users for space-saving components supporting heavier payloads.

Suppliers are expanding their portfolios and helping beverage-makers maintain quality control and uptime.

Although automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and automated guided carts (AGCs) have been in the market for more than 40 years, a renewed interest has emerged in “true robotic systems” that consistently and predictably transport loads of materials to places that might otherwise be serviced by manually driven forklift trucks, conveyors or manual cart transport, experts say. “Interest is soaring,” says Laura McConney, marketing coordinator at JBT Corp., Chalfont, Pa. “Customers no longer wonder whether they should install AGVs. They know they need them and just want to develop the best implementation plan. Customers are well beyond considering beta site testing and have moved onto enterprise-wide deployments.

At Pack Expo in Chicago, A-B-C Packaging Machine Corp. introduced its new 700 series robot palletizers utilizing a Yaskawa robot arm. The 700 series palletizes cases, trays or bags in multiple configurations at speeds as fast as 30 cycles a minute, the company says.

“Danger, danger, Will Robinson” was a phrase that the robot frequently uttered to the youngest member of the Robinson family during the mid-1960s TV show “Lost in Space,” about a family whose spaceship crash lands on an alien planet. Although the robots in today’s beverage plants do not display human emotions, robotic systems increasingly are being used in beverage operations to speed up bottling, packing and distribution efforts.

Equipment suppliers continue to release new innovations in packaging. Douglas Machine Inc. offers a robotic TriVex Sl/Sli top load case packer, while Standard-Knapp Inc. unveiled its new packaging machine for the craft beer industry.

In this video, Tree Top, an agricultural cooperative with eight processing facilities, installed robotics to its packaging line. Director of Engineering Andy Juarez discusses how robotics helped improve the packaging lines and what challenges come with adding automation to their facilities.