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Robotics expertGeoff Pegmansees a strong futurefor food assembly.Page 6 >
Technology:User-friendly soft-ware update for PickMaster givesmore options.Page 16 >
PFM’s Daniel Gravini
In the U.S. andCanada, Propackpushes automationin the snack-foodsector.Page 8 >
ROBOTICS
chooses robots for flexibility and accuracy. Page 4 >
A MAGAZINE FROM ABB NOVEMBER 2004
PACKAGING
01_cover 04-10-22 09.12 Page 1
www.abb.com/automot ive
3 ABB News: from milking machines in the Nether-lands to AEW Delford’s new portion picker.
4 Italian packaging company PFM has developed aflexible solution for baby wipe lids.
6 Robotics expert Geoff Pegman talks the latesttrends in the food industry.
8 Carton-loading automator Propack helps NorthAmerica pack its snacks.
12 At the Andechs Monastery, the monks brew theirbeer with tradition and high technology.
14 Frozen pizzas require the delicate handling that Vortex offers.
16 Technology: The updated robot controller – the IRC5– debuts, plus the latest PickMaster software.
20 Roland pretzels arrive unbroken, thanks to robots.
22 Automation means better sausages, happier workers at Swedish Meats.
Contents
November 2004International customer magazinefrom ABB for the consumer pack-aging industry.Publisher and copyright© 2004ABB Automation Technologies AB721 68 Västerås, SwedenTel. +46 21 325 000e-mail: [email protected]/roboticsTryck: Fagerblads, Västerås
Any use of text or photos requires written
consent of the publisher.
Robots are the answer
2 P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 4
Editorial
> Welcome to ABB’s Packaging Robotics, amagazine for those interested in the latesttechnology for the packaging and handlingof everything from food to pharmaceuticals,cosmetics to consumer electronics.
As robotics expert Geoff Pegman points outin this issue of the magazine, today productsnot only have shorter life spans than everbefore, but the time to market pace is fasterwhile product volumes need to be increas-ingly flexible. At the same time, finding andretaining qualified workers remains difficult.All of this adds up to manufacturers needingthe kind of flexible automation that roboticscan provide.
In this issue, you can see how 6-axis robots,along with dedicated robots for picking,packing and palletizing and user-friendlysoftware, all from ABB, are being used ineverything from the packaging of snackbarsfor Les Aliments Multibar in Canada, to mak-ing sure Switzerland’s Roland Pretzels don’tget broken in the box before they ever makeit to the consumer.
As the market matures, I predict we’ll seeeven more solutions such as these, with themost growth in high-speed picking, whichrequires some of the most complex roboticssolutions, but can offer some of the greatestsavings in efficiency and ultimately cost.
Whether you are a system integrator or amanufacturer of consumer goods, we’vecreated this magazine with you in mind,showing a range of solutions from our part-ners along with viewpoints from industryexperts on the latest trends. We hope youenjoy Packaging Robotics.
Henrik AnderssonSegment Manager, Consumer IndustriesABB Automation [email protected]
ROBOTICSPACKAGING
Content 04-10-25 13.03 Page 2
> In 1974, the first IRB 6 robots came into operation, produced by what wasthen the Swedish company Asea. Since then, Asea has merged with theSwiss manufacturer Brown Boveri to become ABB. The robot manufacturerhas undergone a number of other changes, including the acquisition of com-panies in the U.S. and France, among other places, and the further concen-tration of operations to Västerås in central Sweden. In 2002, ABB passed theimportant milestone of selling 100,000 robots, the only robot manufacturer inthe industry to have done so far. Today, ABB is proud to celebrate 30 yearsof robot production, and looks forward to a future where automation can onlyincrease.
3
Calender Celebrating 30 years of robot production
N E W S <
New solution from AEW Delford Systems
> AEW Delford Systems have introduced a robot portion loading system(RPLS) that will pick single, fresh or frozen, bone-in or boneless meat por-tions or sliced groups – such as bacon or cooked meats – from a por-tioning slicer, saw or conveyor and place them straight into trays or ther-moformers ready for packing.
The new system, created by AEW Delford working with ABB, utilizesvision technology to accurately recognise the position and orientation ofportions on the conveyor. This enables the machine’s unique, mechani-cal action gripper to gently – but quickly – lift, transfer and place theportioned product with great accuracy into the tray or thermoformer.
Award for milking with robots > Henk Hofman of Hokofarm in the Nether-lands received the ABB-sponsored 21st Gold-en Robot Award in March 2004 at the annualInternational Symposium on Robotics. Theaward was in recognition of industrial robotsfor cow milking.
Hofman received the award for his work inexpanding the use of robots in a non-tradi-tional area that points to expansion not justwithin cow milking, but other industrieswhere robots have not been used thus far.Hofman holds a number of patents related tothe application of cow milking with the helpof robots.
NOVEMBER7-11, 2004PackExpo InternationalChicago, USAPhone +1 703 243 8555E-mail [email protected]
22-26, 2004EmballageParis-Nord Villepinte, FrancePhone + 33 (0)1 496 854 37www.emballage2002.com
MARCH15-17, 2005ProPakBeijing, ChinaPhone +44 20 7862 2063E-mail [email protected]
APRIL21-27, 2005InterpackDüsseldorf, GermanyE-mail [email protected]
MAY24-26, 2005PACex International PackagingToronto, CanadaPhone +1 490 7860E-mail: [email protected]
JULY28-30 2005Aus Expo 2005Melbourne, AustraliaPhone +61 3 9909 77 87E-mail [email protected]
Content 04-10-22 15.11 Page 3
4
> Baby wipes for a 40th birthday? They areappropriate if the “baby” in question is PFM, afamily-owned Italian company specializing in flex-ible film packaging, celebrating its 40th anniversaryin 2004. The packages for baby wipes producedby PFM are unique in that their plastic lids areapplied not by human hands but by vision-equipped robots – the FlexPicker – supplied byABB.
Baby wipes weren’t the company’s originalfocus, however. PFM (the initials stand for PietroFioravanti Macchine; “macchine” means mach-ines) has been making packaging systems since1964 from its home in Torrebelvicino (Vicenza),Italy, at a time when robots on an Italian pro-duction line were the stuff of dreams.
Italianapack, the company that was to becomePFM, was created by Pietro Fioravanti for theproduction of horizontal flow-wrap packagingmachines. That means PFM does not buildmachinery for paper packaging, but rather forflexible film packaging.
“We are the second oldest company in Italy inour sector and the only one with ISO 9001/2000certification,” points out Paolo Fioravanti, son of
PFM founder Pietro Fioravanti and current man-aging director. “Our competitors are primarily inItaly and Germany. Together these two countriesproduce 80 percent of the world’s packagingmachines. To stay ahead of the game, we arealways seeking new technology, proposing newefficiencies, faster equipment and a faster pace ofchange to our clients.”
This is where the baby wipe project comes in.About 10 years ago, producers of “Pillow-Pack”type packages for moist baby wipes began askingPFM to put lids on these packages, so the wipeswould be easier to extract and be protected so theywouldn’t dry out once the package was opened.“We said ‘Impossible. It can’t be done,’” admitsPaolo Fioravanti.
Then he saw ABB’s FlexPicker at a trade showin 1998. The Vision system of the FlexPickerseemed to offer a way to apply glue to the lidswithout creating more problems than it solved.PFM started talking with ABB. Eventually sever-al technicians from ABB came down from Swedento offer support in Vicenza. By 2000, a prototypemachine was ready.
While the first year saw many kinks that needed
PFM in Italy puts the lid on flexible film packaging problems.
P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > P F M
FlexPicker key to solutionThe FlexPicker system is composedof two feeding belts and a glue appli-cation gun. The robot’s job is to pickthe lid up from a cleated chain con-veyor using a vacuum cup system,apply a continuous flow of glue, andplace the lid on the target packagewith a precision of three mm. Withthe PickMaster system any shape lidcan be used with a minimum usage
of glue and a very fast changeovertime (five to 10 minutes), according toDaniel Gravini, customer supportengineer for PFM.
Gravini notes that the system isextremely user friendly and allowsclients to set up and run new prod-ucts without any problems or specialknowledge.
Davide Rossi, robotics technician forABB Process Solutions & Services (abranch of the Automation Technolo-gies division of the ABB Group), addsthat the modular system and the suc-tion grip adapt to various lids andpacks, in contrast to traditional sys-tems, and are safer for the operatorand more hygienic for the final con-sumer.
Robot-wrappedbirthday package
by Claudia Flisiphotos Maurizio Camagna
04 PFM 04-10-21 15.42 Page 4
“To stay ahead ofthe game, we arealways seekingnew technology,proposing new efficiencies, faster equipmentand a faster pace of changeto our clients.”
Paolo Fioravanti, PFM
5
to be ironed out, in 2001 ABB introduced a newgeneration of software for Vision – ABB’s Pick-Master, designed specifically for use with handlingconsumer goods like jar lids – which solved theproblems, says Daniel Gravini, customer supportengineer for PFM.
That year PFM gave a prototype to an Italianclient, and immediately sold three more to thatsame client. They have since sold 16 machines tocustomers in Korea, the U.S., Germany, and theNetherlands as well as Italy.
The complete line costs 350,000 euro and pro-duces 70 packs a minute. Formerly these packshad to go through two additional processes forsorting and orienting and produced 50 packs aminute. Moreover, the equipment traditionallyused was inflexible.
“We have seen that once it has been made for a lidshape it is very hard to change,” observes Gravini.This inflexibility could be a big problem in a coun-try like Korea, for example, where 40 different-shaped lids are available, from teardrop to squareto round. Applying glue could also be a real chal-lenge because of the problem of leakage in a prod-uct where hygiene is essential. But the FlexPickerand PickMaster provide the flexibility and accuracythat help eliminate these difficulties. And price isnot a major consideration; payback comes in lessthan 18 months anyway. “Ease of use and positiveresults are what count for our clients,” says Fiora-vanti.
PFM has a varied and interesting history. Between1964 and 1974, flow-wrap machines, overhauls ofused machines, and machine tooling work were thecompany’s core business. In 1974, the companylaunched production of forced air rotary ovens forbakery goods. This business area would co-existwith packaging for about a decade. In 1984 a newlaw regarding mozzarella packaging set the stagefor an explosion in this specialized segment of thepackaging business, and PFM became its leader, aposition it continues to maintain.
Production range is made up of around 40 mod-els divided into flow wrap and fill, form seal pack-aging machines, various automatic feed systems, aninfinite range of accessories for specific operationsand for customization of machines and lines, aswell as a complete series of linear and multi-head-ed weighing machines.
Products handled are cheese, fresh salads, bakery
goods and confectionery, meats, detergents, cos-metics… and wipes for personal hygiene, naturally.“We sell in all sectors but are leaders in food, espe-cially dairy,” reports Paolo Fioravanti. “We aredivided among dairy, produce, meats, and confec-tionery. Seventy percent of our machines are forfood, 30 percent for non-food.”
Today the company has seven plants, three inNorthern Italy, and one each in the U.K., Ger-many, the United States, and Canada. Sales havebeen increasing 10 percent annually in recent years.
Total sales in 2004 are about 50 million euro, halffrom the main plant in Vicenza and half from theothers. Half of the company’s 300 employees arebased at headquarters, and half of the total outputof 1,000 machines is assembled there..
P F M <
Plenty of benefitsThe advantages for PFM’s popular solution for handling thelids of baby wipe packages include:• Lower cost• Simplicity for the operator• Takes less space than traditional gluing solutions because
the ABB FlexPicker robot is placed over the work area andnot next to it
• More hygienic because there is less handling.• Reliability.• “If the client wants, we test every machine with the speci-
fied film and product right here before it is shipped out,”says PFM customer support engineer Daniel Gravini.“Modifications done here are practically free.”
PFM cells workwith everythingfrom baby wipesto cookies.
04 PFM 04-10-21 15.45 Page 5
6
> You have a highly diverse background in
robotics. What is the food connection?
In economic terms, the food industry is one ofthe largest, worldwide. Automation companiesand system integrators are now looking at foodas “the next big area.” Many of the present solu-tions are coming from specialists in packagingand palletizing that are starting to look up-stream. A lot of what I do is about awareness.There are a few high-profile applications around,but most people in the food business areunaware of the potential in automation. Foodassembly is the upstream issue I’m interested in– ready meals, sandwiches and that sort of thing.We are working on prototypes and one-offs forfood assembly, not food packaging.Describe the differences between assembly,
packaging and palletizing.
Palletizing is basically a solved problem, withgood technology already available. Packaging isdifferent. High volumes are not a problem withhard automation, but lower volumes can be dif-ficult to solve. Generally, in the packaging phase,you are dealing with nice, uniform items, such asbiscuits, which are relatively simple compared tothe upstream components. Food assembly usinga picker is a challenge because making a compo-sition, like a ready meal or sandwich, is hard todefine and refine. It means having to handle flex-ible, wet and irregular materials. Defining theseforms is not easy: tomato slices and pieces ofturkey breast vary a lot. This pushes the require-ments on vision systems and gripping technolo-gies as well as speed.What has been your biggest challenge, so far?
The one we’re currently looking at is the
R.U. Robots' managing director Geoff Pegman talks with reporter Dick Cadwaladerabout the latest trends in automation and the food industry.
P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > T R E N D S
The guru of roboticsphotos Philip Blythman
05 Trends 04-10-21 15.50 Page 6
task by example. For instance, showing therobot how to handle a turkey breast by pickingit up and laying it down a few times. You needthis simplicity as at present the food industrydoes not have the IT staff and programmers todeal with more complex programming. Howev-er, these are not simple concepts to implement.Fuzzy logic and neural network concepts fromthe world of artificial intelligence are possibletechnologies for future use.What sort of investment expenses and pay-
back times are involved?
Solutions must not cost too much. After allyou are replacing very adaptable humans. Andeven if they do come with certain problems,most of these workers are not highly paid.
Most small- and medium-sized companies areusually looking for a one- to two-year paybackon their investment, usually based on a givenproduct. Such solutions need to compete withthe employment cost of replacing one or twopeople per year at roughly 25,000 to 30,000euros per person.
7
assembly of sandwiches with production runsdown to as few as 100 sandwiches at once. Then,having to quickly switch to a new sandwich type,for instance from ham salad to sliced cheese,makes it even more difficult. A lot of getting thisright has to do with how ingredients are pre-pre-pared and presented to the robot in a robot-friendly manner. In other words we don’t neces-sarily go in to automate the same tasks peoplehave been doing. We need to think of how bestto approach the entire task.
Previously in the food industry, the only choic-es available were the use of people or hardautomation, which is generally the choice of bigproducers. This choice involves large, expensiveand specialized machines for limited sets oftasks. When you get into more advanced tasking,you quickly see how good people are at perceiv-ing subtleties, such as form and color. There is atendency to take people for granted. On theother hand, robots are very good at consistency,so the supermarket will always get what it asksfor, which is not necessarily the case whenhumans do food assembly.What are the drivers in today’s marketplace?
The commercial drivers affecting small- andmedium-sized companies are downward pricepressures and the fact that it is increasingly diffi-cult and expensive to recruit, train and retainworkers. Also, food is becoming [like] fashion.Many products are designed to appeal to buyersfor only six to 18 months. Subsequently, this putspressure on time to market: You must be able todeliver quickly if you are supplying supermarkets.In addition, these drivers require producers to beflexible about what they produce, while retainingthe ability to make changes quickly and easily.What would be the ideal robotic solution for
food assembly?
Some of the new robots, such as an ABB Flex-Picker, are able to achieve the same rates as peo-ple and are often faster. Since a lot of these tasksinvolve assembly and transfer, you want a devicethat will travel about one meter with a radius ofabout half a meter. It should also be able to per-form tasks similar to those humans do. Repeata-bility needs to be about one centimeter, so it isnot like an industrial robot that might handle 0.2millimeters. Payload only needs to be about onekilogram.
You need a vision system capable of drivingthe robot to a given location, with grippers andquick-change end effectors able to handle piecesas small as one centimeter. A reasonable level ofquality assessment via the vision camera is com-ing, but these areas are difficult to define inquantitative terms.
Hygiene is also a driver, so the robot must bewater-jet washable. Automation also gives trace-ability, even down to which robot did whichsandwich.
One of the great ideals is to be able to teach a
T R E N D S <
Geoff Pegman knows robots.
“We need to think of howbest to approach the entiretask.” Geoff Pegman, R.U. Robots Ltd.
What are your thoughts about using these
advances in other industries, and what other
areas should we watch carefully in the near
future?
The technologies we are discussing might beadaptable for industries dealing with non-stan-dard shapes and composition, such as clothingmanufacturing. Soon, we will see more robotscoming into public spaces and at home.
One big area is medical robots. Today we haverobots assisting surgeons. Soon the balance ofdecision-making may move more towards therobots. Theoretically, if you have enough moneyyou can build a robot for virtually any task, yetno robot is adaptable across a range of tasks.
Geoff PegmanAge: 50 Hobbies: “Robots, sad asit sounds; also computing,reading, film and travel.”Title: Managing director ofR.U.Robots Ltd., one ofBritain’s newest robotcompanies.
RUR develops prototypesfor use in new areas, suchas nuclear safety (searchand rescue robots),defense, construction andfoods. After 14 years inthe defense industry, Peg-man helped establish theUK National AdvancedRobotics Research Centreand went on to managethe research program. Fol-lowing this, he played akey role in the commer-cialization of the center,setting up UK Roboticsand heading that organiza-tion for nearly eight years.Pegman was recentlyelected as chairman of theInternational AdvancedRobotics Programme(IARP). He is the U.K. rep-resentative of the Euro-pean Space Agency Advi-sory Group on AdvancedRobotics. He also chairsthe special interest groupon advanced roboticswithin the British Automa-tion & Robotics Associa-tion (BARA). Furtherdetails are available atwww.rurobots.co.uk
05 Trends 04-10-21 15.51 Page 7
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> The North American confectionary packagingindustry has few secrets for Chris Follows. Sowhen he realized a few years ago that snack-foodmakers wanted packing machines that offeredmore flexibility and took up less floor space, heresponded.
As president of Propack Processing & Packag-ing Systems, a Canadian manufacturer and distrib-utor of standardized carton-loading machines,Follows overhauled the make and design of hiscompany’s core product line – the LJ Series. “Weneeded to increase the number and variety oftasks our machines could do,” he says. “We alsoneeded to downsize our machines. Their foot-print was too big.”
To solve the problem, Follows decided tochange the robotics at the very heart of hismachines. Gone was an old big 6-axis, side-load-ing system. In its place was ABB’s FlexPicker IRB340, a 4-axis, top-mounted picker system. Thechange, says Follows, was immediately embracedby Propack customers across Canada and theUnited States. “The 4-axis machines offer our cus-tomers more options and they are more durable,”he says. “We’ve got more than 50 of them in thefield and we’ve had no issues with any of them.
When our customers are happy, so are we.”That’s a maxim Follows came by as honestly as
did his knowledge of the packaging industry. Theson of a manufacturing representative for anAmerican packaging-machine maker, he trainedand worked as a mechanical technician beforejoining Klockner Packaging Machinery. After fiveyears as head of the company’s sales department,he left in search of a new challenge and foundedPropack in 1996.
Initially, the company was a literal one-manshow, with Follows acting as the North Americanmanufacturing representative for Dutch packag-ing-machine maker Tevopharm BM. Since then,Propack’s product line has continued to grow.Today, in addition to selling a variety of modelsin its own LJ Series, which are assembled at amanufacturing facility near Quebec City, Propackis the North American distributor for HoudijkHolland’s biscuit-packaging systems andTevopharm BV’s flowrapper and multipurposemodular in-line infeed systems. The company isalso a distributor for Bradman-Lake, a cartonmachinery manufacturer based in North Caroli-na, and Schneider Packaging, a packaging equip-
Propack, one of North America’s leading carton-loadingautomators, aims to make life simpler and more efficient forcandy and cookie manufacturers.
P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > P R O P A C K
Packing snacks made easy
by Mark Cardwell photos Mark Cardwell
06 Propack 04-10-25 13.06 Page 8
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ment maker in Brewerton, New York.The company’s customer list is equally impres-
sive. Follows says that some of North America’sbiggest food- and meal-supplementary drug-making conglomerates are using Propack-sup-plied packaging machines to wrap and packeverything from cookies and cakes to candy- andmeal-supplement bars. “We completely domi-nant the latter sector in Canada,” he says. “Wehave 17 LJs there. I think that represents all ofthe machines being used.”
Propack has also continued to grow in termsof the number and quality of its employees.“Technically, we have one of the best teams inthe industry,” says Follows of his company’s 10-member staff, most of whom work in the com-pany’s unpretentious suite of offices in an indus-trial strip mall in Oakville, Ontario, a 20-minutedrive south of Toronto. “That allows us tocheck out machines properly. And the fact thatall the models in our LJ Series run the same pro-gram saves us time and trouble, too.”
The most notable addition to the company’spersonnel in recent years has been Kevin Cros-by. After spending a decade helping one ofNorth America’s largest candy-bar makers build
a high-speed robotic collating system, Crosbyjoined Propack in 2001 as both a partner andvice president of manufacturing and engineer-ing. “Kevin brought a huge wealth of knowl-edge and understanding about the confectionaryindustry to our company,” says Follows.
It was Crosby who first suggested replacing anold robotics system in the LJ Series with ABB’sIRB 340. A more flexible machine, together witha customized PC platform that makes both hard-ware and software easier to upgrade and sup-port, has helped Propack become the dominantplayer in the medium- and high-speed confec-tionary packaging markets in North America.“Our systems are so easy to use that our cus-tomers can change the settings themselves. Theydon’t need a robotics technician,” says Follows.“That allows them to switch product lines withlittle time and trouble. That’s exactly what com-panies want, especially the smaller ones.”
Big ones, too, it seems. One of Propack’sbiggest customers, Montreal-based Les AlimentsMultibar Inc., has ten LJ500 models for itsassembly process, which produces two millionsnack bars a day for customers like Quaker Oatsand Atkins. “I don’t buy things for the price, I
P R O P A C K <
PropackPresidentChris Fol-lows, withV.P. KevinCrosby andengineeringmanagerDave Young.
>
“I don’t buy things for the price, I buy them for quality.”
Raymond Guilbeault, Les Aliments Multibar Inc.
06 Propack 04-10-21 15.55 Page 9
Big plans for Propack
> Propack president Chris Follows is under-standably hesitant to discuss the ongoingdevelopment of the newest addition to hiscompany’s LJ Series of packaging machines.He will say, however, that the new model willincorporate more ABB technology than theIRB 340 FlexPicker, the robotics system atthe heart of all LJ machines. The new one, hesays, will also have the IRC5, ABB’s fifth gen-eration robot controller.
A new modular concept with anergonomically-designed portable interface,user-friendly Windows layout, and touch-screen operations, the controller offersincreased life-time profitability for end users– the same qualities and benefits that Fol-lows wants to pass on to Propack’s cus-tomers. “It will help them reduce theircosts,” he says. “When our customers arehappy, I’m happy – and our customers willbe happy with our new machine.”
Those comments are music to the earsof Mikael Packalén. As channel partnersales manager of ABB Robotic, Automotive& Manufacturing - Canada, his job is todevelop the non-automotive manufacturingindustrial market for ABB by working withintegrators and machine builders that sup-ply robot-based automation to the con-sumer industry, particularly the food, bever-age, and pharmaceutical fields. “My job isto get people excited about robotics,”explains Packalén, who hails from Sweden.
Among ABB’s many Canadian partners,Packalén considers Propack to be one ofthe most dynamic. “They are very focusedon what they do and they’re very knowl-edgeable about their market,” he says.“They are also an important partner andchannel for us into the North Americanpackaging market.”
Through Propack, Packalén hopes tosee a big increase in the sales of the IRB340 FlexPicker thanks to the rapid growthin the use of robotics in the North Americanfood industry. “The industry is now adapt-ing to robotics, particularly for applicationslike palletizing, picking, and packing,” hesays. “The growth potential is huge, partic-ularly when you’re working with a dynamicpartner like Propack.”
P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > P R O P A C K10
buy them for quality,” says company owner Ray-mond Guilbeault. “With Propack, I get both.” Inaddition to small improvements Propack hasmade to the LJ500 in response to his company’sneeds and observations, Guilbeault says he appre-ciates the personal and professional attentivenesshe gets from Follows. “I’ve dealt with Chris for 15years. He knows his stuff, he’s a good guy, and Ican reach him anytime,” says Guilbeault.
Despite the accolades, Propack’s owners aren’tresting on their laurels. In an effort to break intothe highly-competitive, low-speed packaging mar-ket, Follows and Crosby are in the midst of devel-oping a new model in the LJ Series – a single-trainsystem that will be able to run 500 pieces perminute and load cartons. “We’re looking to reduceend-cost dramatically,” says Follows, who hopes tounveil the new machine at the Interpack show inDüsseldorf, Germany next April. “That’s what ourcustomers want. And by staying in tune with them,we’ll continue to be successful.”
>
ABB's Mikael Packalén likes to get people excited about robotics.
“Our systems are so easy to use that our customers canchange the settings themselves. They don’t need a roboticstechnician.”
Chris Follows, Propack
06 Propack 04-10-25 13.07 Page 10
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> Brewing beer has been a long tradition in theAndechs Benedictine Monastery. Since the MiddleAges, monks have served their own barley brew totravelers and pilgrims. Today, the monks’ breweryproduces over 10,000,000 liters of beer – an out-put made possible by the latest technology.
Initially to meet their own needs and then toprovide for guests, monks started producing beerthemselves at a very early date.
They quickly discovered that beer not only satis-fied their thirst. When it was brewed full andstrong, it actually filled their stomachs too. For thisreason, beer became known as “liquid bread.”
But good beer was rare in the Middle Ages. Thebrew the monasteries obtained from surroundingvillages was usually only thin oat beer. The monkstherefore had no other option than to take upbrewing themselves. As most monasteries con-ducted their own agriculture anyway, they simplyplanted more barley. This produced better-tastingand more nutritious beer than oats.
The monks’ beer quickly became far superior toanything brewed in the surrounding district. Themain reason for this, apart from the better-for-
brewing cereal, was that individual monks wereable to attend exclusively to brewing beer and theeducated brothers took a scientific approach to thetask, becoming true specialists and acknowledgedmaster brewers.
Monks also gave anyone who knocked at themonastery gate something to eat and, of course, ameasure of beer. In addition, for a fee, the monas-teries were able to acquire the right to sell theirbeer commercially and to serve it in what wereknown as monastery taverns. In this way, many amonastery developed over time into a well-runhostelry.
This is precisely what happened at the BavarianAndechs Monastery. Beer had been brewed inAndechs back in the Middle Ages, after the Dukeof Wittelsbach, Albrecht III, had founded theBenedictine abbey in 1455 on the Andechs moun-tain. And they became so skilled at brewing thattheir high-grade barley brew became appreciatedfar beyond the monastery walls. In the brewerytoday they produce five sorts of bottom-fer-mented and two sorts of top-fermented beer,
Modern techniques allow monks at the Andechs Benedictine Monastery to continue brewing beer.
P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > A N D E C H S
Bless this brewery
08 Germanvision 04-10-22 13.33 Page 12
example. Over the working day, quite a few metrictons in weight have to be moved by personnel. Butthe robot can do far more than simply stack pal-lets with the various sizes of container, from 50liters down to 10 liters. The new facility created bythe beverage specialist from Wald in the Allgäuwas designed and programmed to be very flexibleto operate.
During normal production, the robot takes thekeg from the “empties” conveyor, transfers it to asealing station where the keg closure is tightenedand passes it on to the cleaning and filling line.Then it lifts the full keg up again, applies the seal-ing cap, dates it with an ink-jet printer and placesit on pallets on one of two full-keg conveyors,according to the type of beer. Depending onwhich conveyor the kegs have been palletized on,the kegs which were not filled because of a tech-nical problem, for example a defective closure, areset aside on the other conveyor. When started upin the morning, the robot loads the cleaning andfilling line with empty kegs until the first full keg isready to be palletized. The entire facility is operat-ed via an easy-to-understand touch-screen panel.
High technology and tradition form perfectpartners at the Andechs Monastery. The modelcreated jointly by the monks and personnel isclearly the key to the corporate culture of thebrewery and of the other monastery undertakings.Say the monks: “It is our tradition to be progres-sive; our progress is due to a great tradition.”
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which are sold throughout Germany and in manyEuropean countries.
When the Benedictines at Andechs askedthemselves in the 1970s whether the tradition ofbrewing beer should be discontinued in view ofeconomic changes or continued but using newtechnology, the monks decided in favor of build-ing a completely new brewery. In 1972 they erect-ed a comprehensive brewery at the foot of theirmonastery. The new establishment was finallycomplete in 1983 when the brewing room wentinto operation with fermenting and storage cel-lars.
Since that time, all the technical brewing facili-ties have been consistently renewed and broughtinto line with the modern brewing industry. Thislong-term investment policy by the monasterynot only guarantees a high-quality beer and envi-ronmentally friendly production, but also a goodworking environment.
One contribution to good working conditionswas the introduction of a palletizing robot fromABB in October 2003. The IRB 6650 robot,known affectionately by the brewery workers as“Blue Berty,” is the key machine in a kegging linemade by Albert Frey Dienstleistungs AG. As a spe-cialist in flexible solutions in the beverage industry,Albert Frey successfully employs ABB robots forkeg handling.
Kegs, as the cylindrical stainless-steel or plasticjacketed drums are known, weigh a good 63 kilo-grams in the case of a full 50-liter container, for
A N D E C H S <
At Andechs BenedictineMonastery, "BlueBerty," an ABB6650 robot, helpsout with packingkegs of beer.
The IRB 6650 robot, known affectionately by the brewery workers as “Blue Berty,” is the keymachine in a kegging line...
08 Germanvision 04-10-22 13.33 Page 13
14
> A good pizza maker is hard to find. You haveto know how to prepare the dough, how long tolet it rise, to shape it without patting, to choosethe proper accoutrements (tomatoes, mozzarella,herbs, cheese) and cook it, according to tradi-tion, in a wood-burning oven.
An expert pizzaiolo might prepare a pizza in afew minutes. But if you are an industrial pizzaproducer, making the pizza is only the first part ofyour problem. You have to freeze it, sort it, wrapit, package it in accordance with regulations forfreshness and hygiene, and make sure it doesn’tloose its attractiveness during this process. Forexample, if the pizza starts out round, it betterlook round when it arrives in the customer’skitchen. If cheese has been sprinkled on top, itbetter be there when the customer opens thepackage… and not wind up on the factory floor.
Enter Italy’s Vortex Systems and Sweden’sABB. Vortex is located in a part of Italy (Fos-salta, near Ferrara in Northern Italy) where thetraditions of machine making are almost asdeeply rooted as those of cooking. ABB’sProcess Solutions & Services (PS & S) is abranch of the Automation Technologies divisionof the ABB Group in Italy.
In 2003, the company began experimentingwith the packaging of frozen products, and ABBbecame involved.
“We decided to enter this market because wemay have some peculiar and new solutions for
this industry” says Garbellini, “even if it’s a morecomplex market that demands great flexibilityand a high hygiene standard.”
Vortex already made its own “robots,” butfrozen products processing demands moremanipulation of the product while on the pro-duction line. At the same time, these productscome in a variety of shapes, and these shapesmay change every few months, depending onconsumer tastes. Vortex engineers decided thatwhat was needed for this special application wasa vision system able to “see” the products com-ing down the line, and a more sophisticated, fastand flexible robotic system that could work on atleast four axes.
The answer turned out to be the FlexPickerfrom ABB, which not only gives Vortex flexibil-ity, but the accompanying PickMaster softwarehas a user-friendly interface that makes it simpleto use.
To start with, ABB made its FlexPicker avail-able to the company. “They gave us a samplerobot to work with, to learn about, to experi-ment on. We played around with it and devel-oped an application with four axes robots havinginnovative features and advantages compared toother solutions on the market,” says Garbellini.
The first industrial system picks each differ-ently shaped pizza up as it moves along a pro-duction line coming from the freezer, positionsit in continuous in the flow-pack chain (Otem
Great frozen pizzas require more than the best ingredients. Proper packaging makessure you get what you expect, nothing more and nothing less.
P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > V O R T E X
Picking pizza pickers
Frozen pizzastake special han-dling by robots.
by Claudia Flisiphotos courtesy Vortex
09 Vortex 04-10-21 16.08 Page 14
is cost-competitive, but it is more flexible thantraditional pick and pack magazines. “Thesemachines, with Vision, can handle triangles,ovals, rectangles, and more than 40 different for-mats and sizes,” he says. In addition, quality con-trol is built in and it is more hygienic because theproduct is picked up and packaged immediatelywithout an intermediate step for sorting. Everystep eliminated is a step forward in hygiene, henotes.
ABB’s FlexPicker using PickMaster software –the second product ABB has provided for Vor-tex, with a third on the way – has performed sowell for pizza that Vortex is now using it in pack-aging machines for breaded meats. Meat is moredifficult to package than pizza because there aremore hygiene requirements and the breading ismore delicate.
Vortex Systems works with more than pizzas, ofcourse. The company was founded in 1987 at atime when robotics in Italy were used for auto-motive production lines, not for food. Butthrough a series of encounters, Vortex Systemswas confronted with the problem of designingmachinery for packaging ice cream cones. “Theopportunity came about by chance, but VortexSystems devoted itself to the challenge,” saysGarbellini.
Vortex Systems’ first projects were installa-tions for the packaging of ice cream cones forAlgida (owned by Unilever), the biggest icecream maker in Italy. French, English, and Ger-man customers soon followed. Machines for thepicking and packing of sticks, cups and sandwichnovelties were added.
Today Vortex Systems is part of the CTGroup. Sister companies of Vortex inside theCT Group include Catta27, which works with icecream processing; Otem, which works withflowpack machines; and Mopa, which workswith feeding systems. Together with Vortex, thisgroup represents a global player in providingintegrated solutions to different packaging andprocess needs.
“Now we can compete with larger Germanand Swiss competitors and have a better pres-ence internationally,” says Garbellini.
15
flowpack machine) and packages it. During thisprocess, ABB’s Vision system guides a robothand developed by Vortex to pick up each pizza.The “hand” has four “fingers” that simulatehuman movement to avoid dropping the pizza.This solution ensures that the product is nottouched by human hands from the time it exitsthe freezer to the moment it is packaged.
The challenge lies in the fact that the pizzas arenot collated neatly on the line and may not beperfectly uniform in shape. Also, they must behandled delicately: There may be cheese or otheritems on top of the pizza and these can’t be lostin the trip from line to package.
Packaging has to be both fast and reliable;downtime means a lot of product will go towaste. ABB’s FlexPickers handles 100 pizzas aminute with payback in six months or less.
According to Garbellini, the advantages of theFlexPicker for this application are not only that it
V O R T E X <
Vortex factsIn 1990 Vortex Systems had about 20 employees; today theyare 75. Half of these are engineers and technical specialists,the other half are commercial, administrative, and productionstaff. The company makes about 30 integrated lines or sys-tems a year, most of them designed for the specific applica-tion of a particular client, with a turnover of over 15 millioneuro. Vortex sales in 2004 will show a growth of about 20 per-cent compared with 2003.
> FA C T S
“These machines,with Vision, canhandle triangles,ovals, rectangles,and more than 40different formatsand sizes.”
Marco Garbellini, Vortex
09 Vortex 04-10-21 16.09 Page 15
16
> With the April 2004 release of version 2.30 ofPickMaster software, ABB continues to ex-pandon the success of the PickMaster 2 platform.
PickMaster is easy-to-use software designedfor use with flexible packaging. The software wasspecially developed for the fast moving con-sumer goods industry, which has high demandssuch as very quick time to market and processreliability.
The target market for the software is very fastprimary packaging operated through the ABBFlexPicker. However, PickMaster is availabletogether with any robot type and represents anideal standard vision tool for many applications.
PickMaster 2.30 introduces a host of new fea-tures, including the latest in digital vision tech-nology from Cognex. The new complete visionkits include tiny digital CMOS cameras and giveaccess to inexpensive high-resolution visionrecognition as a standard option.
In addition to new vision technology and lan-guage additions, PickMaster 2.30 includes a num-ber of other useful features. There is new cameracalibration that allows for flexible and tilted cam-era mounting, and the graphic user interfaceshave been improved for ease of use, simplifyingthe inspection training and providing animproved analysis of the results.
If all this is still not enough, you don't have tostop here. The PickMaster SDK offers powerfulcustomization capability for adding custom visionmodels and since version 2.30, even complete sen-sor systems can be integrated in the PickMasterconcept,, be it a simple bar code reader or a com-plete vision system.
PickMaster 3.0 will soon be ready to meet thenew ABB controller generation, building on theadvantages of earlier versions.
Take all this packaged intelligence, spice it upwith some new functions, connect to the brandnew modular IRC5 robot controller and you'vegot the recipe for the new PickMaster 3.0 genera-tion.
ABB provides compatibility to already installedequipment and smooths the change over to thisnew controller generation. PickMaster 3.0 sup-ports the co-existence of the S4Cplus and IRC5controller in the same installation. In fact, userswill hardly notice the difference. Handling anduser interfaces remain unchanged while the con-troller interfaces are internally hidden.
PickMaster 3.0 introduces a new powerful cus-tomization concept – programmable user hooksusing the Microsoft .NET interface give access toread and manipulate target positions well beforethey are sent to the robots, thus enabling interac-tion with other devices, logging and many othertasks.
PickMaster 3.0 will be available in six languages.
An upgrade of PickMaster means more flexibility for the user-friendly software.
P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > T E C H P A G E
PickMaster is a scalableintegration of high-speedpicking operations, visionand conveyor tracking.Specifications include:
Maximum configuration• One PickMaster/PC• Eight robots/PickMaster• Two vision cards/PickMaster• Eight cameras/PickMaster
• Eight work areas/robot• Six conveyors/robot
Vision• Search tools PatMax/Blob• Inspection (multiple feature
evaluations: size, shape, rela-tive positions, histogram,plus more)
• Interfaces for custom enhancements
More about PickMaster
Essential softwaregets even better
PickMaster features intuitive graphical configuration of flexible packaging lines.
10_Techpage 04-10-25 13.08 Page 16
robotic vision system there is significant built-insupport.
What happens if something goes wrong? Whenthere is a problem, users must determine if theproblem is caused by the robot application or thevision application. If a general-purpose vision sys-tem is used, there is no easy way to determine ifthe problem is with the robot, the vision system,or some combination of robot and vision. If thevision was purchased from a robot supplier, it islikely that the supplier has experience with similarapplications. Thus, the robot supplier, based onprevious applications, is able to supply a “cook-book” approach to the problem and find a solu-tion more quickly.
Deciding on whether to use robotic vision pur-chased from a robot company or to use a general-purpose vision system comes down to asking thefollowing question. “Are the broader range ofoptions available in the general-purpose systemworth the extra time and cost required to make useof them for a robotic vision application?” Themore experience system integrators have withvision, the more appreciation they will have for thevalue of a “ready-to-use” robotic solution.
17
> Wahen evaluating a robot application thatincludes a machine vision component, one criticaldecision is where to purchase the machine visionsystem. Should the system be purchased from arobot supplier, or is it better to purchase from avendor who sells general-purpose machine vision?
The first question to ask is how much applica-tion time is required to get a robotic vision systemworking. Products available from robot suppliersare specifically designed for robotic applicationswith features tuned for robotics. The vision por-tion of robotic applications can be set up using agraphical interface with no programming required.Typically, vision is set up within a half day or less.
A general-purpose machine vision system willhave a broader range of options but few specifi-cally related to robot vision. Setting up roboticvision with a general-purpose machine vision sys-tem requires extra time to sort out what featuresshould be used for the application and extra timefor all the programming required.
Another question to ask is how calibration isestablished between the robot and the vision sys-tem. Products available from robot suppliers havebuilt-in, easy-to-use robotic vision calibrationbased on either calibration grids or motion-basedcalibration. The calibration supplied with general-purpose vision systems tends to be clumsy at best.One supplier required manual input of robotpoints within a separate graphical panel for eachpoint in the calibration. Not only is this awkward,but it is also prone to error.
Many applications require or benefit from morecomplex setups that may include any number ofelements. For example, this could include rotatingan angled gripper, offsetting an entire robot path ortransforming to alternate robot frames. Other ele-ments could include putting a part or camera onthe robot, requiring multiple camera views toimage a part or adding 3-D input through stereo orother imaging techniques.
With these types of complexities, applicationsare far easier to set up with a robotic vision systemthat has the required built-in features.
Extensive programming is required to compen-sate for missing features when using a general-pur-pose vision system for robotic applications. Plus,when using general-purpose vision for roboticapplications, there is no built-in support for pro-gramming a robot. On the other hand, with a
The reasons for deciding to use a robotic vision system are many.
T E C H P A G E <
Vision system from ABB and CognexPickMaster – ABB’s packaging software – uses Cognex MVS-81xxSeries, an advanced vision system developed by Cognex Corpora-tion, one of the world’s leading supplier of machine vision systemswhich are used to automate a wide range of manufacturingprocesses where vision is required. In 2003, Cognex posted USD150 million in revenue. Since its founding in 1981, Cognex hasgenerated over USD 1.6 billion in cumulative revenue and shippedmore than 225,000 vision systems. The company also hasacquired more than 190 patents, with over 80 U.S. and interna-tional patents pending.
Why choose a roboticvision system?
The Cognex MVS-81xx vision system works withABB’s PickMaster Software.
10_Techpage 04-10-22 13.47 Page 17
18 P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > T E C H P A G E
Gain control over robot control
The best robot controller is flexible, easy to use and easy to program.
More information about IRC5 can be found at www.abb.com/robotcontroller.@
> The IRC5 controller sets new standards in user-friendly robot control with its modular concept, acompletely new ergonomically-designed Windowsinterface unit, and fully coordinated multiple robotcontrol through the MultiMove function.
For packaging applications, the IRC5 controlleris integrated in the new PickMaster™ 3.0 fromwhich it can even be controlled in parallel withalready installed S4Cplus systems.
When it comes to modularity, the IRC5 has alogical split of functions into control, axis drivesand process. Each module can be housed in itsown cabinet with identical footprints so they maybe stacked for minimal floor occupancy or distrib-uted up to 75 meters. The modules easily slideunder a conveyor or fit on top of a robot frame.
The hub of the IRC5 is the control module thatperforms all the control functions and path calcu-lations for up to four 6-axis robots plus additionalaxes such as work positioners, with a total maxi-mum of 36 axes. The drive module controls theposition and speed of up to 9 servo axes, and theservo drive cards. Up to four drive modules can belinked to the main control module to drive up tofour robots and additional axes, which is the basisfor MultiMove applications. The process module
has the same communications and interfacearrangements as the control module, and an iden-tical footprint, and therefore is linked in the sameway to the control module.
In terms of user friendliness, a key element is theFlex-Pendant interface unit. The FlexPendant hasonly eight ‘hard’ fast-access buttons, four of whichare fixed and four assignable, plus a unique ABB 3-way joystick for intuitive jogging of the robot, andan emergency stop.
FlexPendant software uses the WindowsCE.NET operating system. The layout is identicalto any Windows page on a PC and rather thanbeing language-based, uses readily recognizableicons that are ‘clickable’ by finger on a fullcolortouch screen. One of many advantages of usingWindows CE is that the system is open, and thescreen can be easily adapted to new industries andlanguages.
The modular IRC5 hasa small footprint.
The FlexPendant is easy to use.
10_Techpage 04-10-22 13.48 Page 18
19T E C H P A G E <
Taking on the big jobsThe IRB 7600 can deal with the heaviest of heavy-duty handling for packaging of consumer goods.
tuning Performance. This feature is based onQuickMove.
A built-in Service Information System moni-tors the motion and load of the machine andoptimizes service requirements by itself.
There are also a number of passive safety fea-tures. These features include options like loadidentification, moveable mechanical stops anddouble-safe limit switches.
> Since the introduction of the “power robot”IRB 7600 a couple of years ago, there has been agrowing demand for this robot for use in heavy-duty palletizing for the consumer goods packag-ing industry. There are many examples of suchapplications, everything from full-layer palletiz-ing and beer keg handling to palletizing bricksused in building, just to mention a few.
The IRB 7600 allows manufacturers of con-sumer goods to handle really big loads, up to 650kilograms at a time.
A major concern with robots handling pay-loads of up to 500 kilograms is to safeguard per-sonnel in the unlikely event of an accident, aswell as to protect the robot itself. To help ensuresecurity, ABB has developed a range of softwareproducts called Active Safety.
Active Safety includes a number of elements.First, collision detection reduces the collisionforce substantially. An Electronically StabilizedPath will ensure that the robot will maintain itsplanned path to its best capability consideringacceleration, drag, gravity and inertia. This fea-ture is secured through a feature called True-Move. Plus, the Active Brake System controls thebraking while ensuring the robot maintains itspath. To achieve optimized performance, therobot adapts to true payloads through its Self-
More about the IRB 7600
Specifications for the IRB 7600 include:Robot versions Reach Handling Center Max.
Capacity of Gravity Wrist
torque
IRB 7600-500 2.30 m 500 kg 360 mm 3010 NmIRB 7600-400 2.55 m 400 kg 512 mm 3010 NmIRB 7600-340 2.80 m 340 kg 360 mm 2750 NmIRB 7600-150 3.50 m 150 kg 360 mm 1880 Nm(IRB 7600-150 loaded with 100 kg 1660 mm)
Extra loads can be mounted on all variants50 kg on upper arm and 550 kg on frame of axis 1.
Loaded with safetyfeatures, the IRB 7600can handle up to 650kilograms at a time.
10_Techpage 04-10-22 15.27 Page 19
20
> What is small, brown, freckled like Pippi Long-stocking, and very crispy? A Roland pretzel fromMurten, of course. For years they have beenpopular with kids on long journeys, and thefavored method of eating them used to be to digaround in the box for the whole ones and leavethe broken ones until last.
Nowadays Roland Pretzels are sold in speciallymoulded plastic containers. And for six monthsnow six ABB robots have been making sure theyare placed in these transparent containers withgreat care. The FlexPicker, thanks to speciallydeveloped mechanics, lifts individual pretzels bytheir two loops and stacks them in the containeruntil it is full. All this takes place at high speed –134 kilograms of pretzels have to be packedevery hour.
The plant never shuts down. Pretzels are made24 hours a day in three shifts, and there’s a famil-iar tempting smell as soon as you enter the facto-ry. The production process takes just 50 minutes,from the mixing of the ingredients – flour, maltand yeast – to the moment the pretzels arepacked.
In the first stage of the process, the raw ingre-dients are piped across the factory, weighed,mixed and kneaded into dough. The dough is
then fed in two kilogram lumps into one of the12 machines that give the pretzels their tradition-al shape: The machine divides the dough into lit-tle balls, each about the size of a walnut, and thenpulls and stretches them into long thin strings.With a final flourish the machine twists the stringinto the right shape and lays it on the conveyorbelt.
It sounds complex, but is in fact surprisinglysimple. Although the pretzels used to be made byhand by women piece-workers, they’ve beenmade by this same machine for the past 40 years.It is, sadly, not an ABB machine.
“It comes from the United States, and eventoday it’s a minor mechanical miracle,” says aproud Walter Fuchs, production manager atRoland Murten AG. “It can twist 40 pretzels aminute.” Although repaired on several occasions,it refuses to give up the ghost. That would be adisaster for the firm, because Roland Murtenprides itself on being the only producer inEurope still twisting pretzels. All their competi-tors stamp them out of the dough.
The pretzels, which have now been evenly dis-tributed onto the conveyor belt are dipped in abath of sodium hydroxide and sprinkled eitherwith coarse grains of salt or sesame seeds. Thenit’s time for the oven, where they are baked forten minutes at 350 degrees C.
This is where the six ABB robots, set up diag-onally opposite each other, go to work. Each hasa camera focused on the conveyor belt, whichtransmits the coordinates of each individual pret-
The latest innovation at Roland Murten AG is pretzels packed individually byrobot – ABB’s FlexPicker IRB 340. It’s fast and the number of broken items hasbeen reduced from between 10 and 12 percent to about 4 percent.
P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > R O L A N D M U R T E N
Handled With Care
Roland MurtenAG has reducedbreakages by twothirds with thehelp of six ABBFlexPickers.
by Melanie Nyfelerphotos courtesy Roland Murten
“The workers really appreciate how quiet thesenew ABB robots are.”
Walter Fuchs, Roland Murten AG
11_Roland 04-10-21 16.11 Page 20
Fewer broken pretzelsProduction manager, Walter Fuchs, explains to reporter Melanie Nyfelerwhy Roland Murten AG decided to invest in ABB robots.In what way can the ABB robots do a better job than the machinesyou used to have?For one thing, the ABB robots operate considerably more quietly than theold machines, which is important for the people who work in the factory.Another thing is that we’ve been able to reduce the number of brokenitems from between 10 and 12 percent to about 4 percent. These robotscan pick the pretzels up much more gently.Are these the reasons you went for ABB robots?Yes. It was also because we’d already been using an ABB robot on ourFlûte production line, with which we’d been very pleased. Working withABB has produced real dividends, because we were able to find solu-tions together. The experts over at ABB understood exactly what weneeded, and made sure that we got it.Are you pleased with the new set-up?Yes, the robots are living up to expectations, even though the machinesand the know-how are absolutely new. We’ve been completely won overby this method of picking the pretzels up, rather than sucking them withair. This is the only plant in Europe that can do that. But there are a fewteething problems that still need ironing out.
popular with workers: “The working environ-ment has become more agreeable and moreinteresting.”
This was also the case for the ABB Robot thatthe Manufacturing and Robotics departmentdelivered and installed a year and a half ago forpacking one of Roland Murten’s other specialties– a puff pastry product, known as a Swiss Flûteor Murten-Stengeli. This too was a small techni-cal miracle, as Erismann is keen to underscore.The robot can pick 100 of these extremely deli-cate puff pastry confections in one go and laythem on the conveyor belt. The Flûtes fall intocontainers and are then weighed. If they are toolight, individual Flûtes follow automatically. It’s amachine that Roland Murten is extremely happywith.
Thanks to ABB you will hardly find any bro-ken Flûtes or pretzels any more – provided youhandle them with care, of course. You’d have todrop a box of them on the floor in order for thekids to be able to pick out the whole ones, andleave the broken ones for last.
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zel to a computer. The computer programs thearm to lift each pretzel by its loops and lay it in acontainer. There are two challenges for this tech-nology, which is being used in Europe for thefirst time: first, the extraordinary precision of thepicking, and, second, the calculation of the short-est distance.
The calculation is made by the PickMastersoftware program. The arm does not, as youmight imagine, take the pretzels off the conveyorbelt in the order in which they arrive, but instead,always takes the one nearest to it. It always needsto know how many pretzels have already beenplaced in each container. Once the container isfull, it is tipped and wrapped in plastic foil.
Production manager Walter Fuchs is delightedwith this technology and the complex know-howbehind it. The old packing system used air tosuck the pretzels to the packaging, which was anextremely noisy business.
“The workers really appreciate how quiet thesenew ABB robots are,” Fuchs says. There’s a fur-ther major advantage of the new FlexPicker IRB340: thanks to the precision of the technology,many fewer pretzels are broken than previously,which is important for the productivity and prof-itability of the whole enterprise (see “Fewer bro-ken pretzels”). Because there are fewer break-ages, fewer people are needed to check thepackaged pretzels and replace the broken ones byhand.
“Before we had to take two people off theother machines to do the quality control,” saysFuchs. “Now everybody can carry on working attheir normal station.”
Werner Erismann, the marketing director ofABB Manufacturing and Robotics in Altstetten,notes that the new robot technology is also very
R O L A N D M U R T E N <
Roland Murten AGRoland Murten AG was founded in 1938 and is now part of theValora Group, to which the company formerly known as Merkur,as well as Kiosk AG, also belong. It’s an enterprise with a longtradition, which employs more than 170 people in Murten, andproduces around 20 tons of baked goods daily. 54 percent ofproduction is exported to other European countries. In thebeginning the company produced mainly crispbread and rusks,but today the range of products has been expanded to includeitems such as pretzels, bread sticks and the famous Flûtes.
> FA C T S
The ABB Flex-Picker lifts eachpretzel individual-ly and lays itcarefully in aplastic container.
11_Roland 04-10-21 16.11 Page 21
22
> In the sausage-making business, automationisn’t just about greater effectiveness. It’s also aboutimproving the working environment for employ-ees. And, says Swedish Meats plant managerRoland Eklöf, “it’s about doing more with less.”
Swedish Meats is a skinless-sausage manufactur-ing plant situated a few kilometers from Örebro, asmall city in south-central Sweden. It employs
about 78 people and produces about 9 million kilo-grams of skinless sausages a year.
The plant runs three eight-hour shifts – twowork shifts during which the sausages are pro-duced, and one maintenance shift during which thelines are systemically cleaned to prepare for thenext two work shifts.
Some 28 people work on the production line
Automation pays off with greater efficiency and better workingconditions for sausage-maker Swedish Meats.
P A C K A G I N G R O B O T I C S > S W E D I S H M E A T S
Taking the load offSwedish Meats’environment andhygiene manager,Håkan Berglind,left, with plant manager RolandEklöf.
by Brian Owensphotos Anders Kristensson
12_Scanmeat 04-10-21 16.28 Page 22
The sausages are packed into the boxes at a rateof 96 packages a minute. Guided by the videocamera, the tracking system tells the picking robotsexactly when, where and how the packages arepositioned on the conveyor belt, so the robot canpick them up. Because the packages are positionedrandomly at various angles, the claws must be ableto rotate to accommodate the placement.
“Our ABB team in Stockholm came up with atracking solution that was a big step forward fromthe previous version,” says Larsen. “It also madethe system much more reliable.” An even-newerversion is being developed that will mean evengreater benefits for Swedish Meats.
The suction cups for grabbing the packages pre-sented another challenge for Larsen and his team.They needed to be of a material that was bothdurable and gripped the package surface well andat the same time was soft enough to avoid damag-ing the sausages or tearing the packages. Larsenand his team went with a Canadian-made siliconecompound that had a soft surface but could lastfor 20 days, working 18 to 20 hours a day. Vacuumchannels built into each suction cup helped to pro-tect the packages as they were lifted, held and thenreleased.
At the end of the production line, a much largerABB robot was situated to place the packed boxeson pallets and move the pallets onto a wagon to betransported to the cool storage room to awaitshipment. The IRB 640 is capable of lifting fiveboxes at a time off the conveyor belt and onto thepallets.
Larsen says the solution is “pretty standard soft-ware we use for palletizing applications.”
The introduction of robots has not only greatlyincreased the efficiency of the sausage packagingprocess and reduced the backbreaking work ofpackaging and lifting, but it has paid off econom-ically. In total, since the installation, the sausagefactory has been able to reduce the production linestaff by 10 workers.
23
during a shift. The production line comprises thecomplete manufacturing process, starting with thegrinding and mixing of the meat, followed by thesmoking and cooling, and ending with the packag-ing.
All meats are purchased in Sweden, a point ofpride for Swedish Meats, whose primary market isdomestic. Swedish Meats belongs to a Swedishfarmer cooperative, which is owned by some13,000 Swedish farmers. They are, in effect, theshareholders, realizing any dividends if the plantperforms well.
Since the early 1990s, when it produced a varietyof meat products, the Örebro facility has narrowedits product range to specialize. Today it producesonly skinless sausage. “We’ve come a long way,”says Eklöf. “We’re a midget in the concern but agiant on the market. We have 50 percent of themarket; our next biggest competitor has 16 per-cent.”
To achieve profitability, the plant manager isalways striving to ensure that the factory runs aseffectively as possible, which means pinpointingtasks in which workers are under more physicalstress than is optimal over time. Two such taskswere isolated, involving the packing stages of pro-duction.
“We were concerned about the ergonomicaspects of packing the boxes,” says HåkanBerglind, Swedish Meats’ environment and hygienemanager. “You can imagine what this kind of activ-ity will do to your back and shoulders after a while.”
Swedish Meats turned to ABB to supply roboticsolutions for the most physically stressful tasks onthe line.
Robotic picking “cells” with ABB’s FlexPickerrobots were strategically positioned on each of twoconveyor belts to pack the already plastic-wrappedsausages in boxes for transportation.
The newly installed picking cells are equippedwith integrated video cameras and tracking systemsto enable the robots to pick up the wrapped pack-ages of sausages from the conveyor belts. Thepackages are then placed with labels and barcodesuniformly positioned in a box about the size of ashoebox.
One issue in developing the robotic solution wasdealing with the reflection of the light on the pack-ages. “Because the packages are made of plastic,the light from the lamps reflected back, blinding thecamera,” says Arild Larsen, ABB engineer re-spon-sible for the solution. “What we did was light theconveyor belt from the side, reducing the glare.”
S W E D I S H M E A T S <
The IRB 640 doesits job at SwedishMeats.
“We were concernedabout the ergonomicaspects of packingthe boxes.”
Håkan Berglind, Swedish Meats
12_Scanmeat 04-10-21 16.25 Page 23
ABB’s FlexPicker is the fastest, most accurate picking machine on the planet.
Engineer Davide Rossi is seen here monitoring our closest competitor.
The IRB 340 FlexPicker has rapidly become a winner in a wide range of packaging applications. Davide Rossi, who provides technical support to system integrators and OEMs, knows why customers appreciate this product so much. Extremely fast, the FlexPicker handles an amazing 120 picks per minute with a one kg payload. But speed isn’t the only attraction. Supported by the PickMaster software and world-beating vision technology, FlexPicker sidesteps fl awed products and only picks perfection. Which truly makes it a rare animal in the world of packaging.
For more information on the pick of robotics, visit For more information on the pick of robotics, visit For more information on the pick of robotics, www.abb.com/robotics
