A market-leading dairy manufacturer in Laverton ran six packaging lines, each needing an operator to hand-stack cartons — 40 boxes per minute, 95+ SKUs in random orientation, cartons from 1.2kg to 15kg, and off-the-shelf palletisers didn't fit.
Cartons in any orientation, 1.2kg to 15kg
Three UR20 collaborative robots on Robotiq PE20 palletising bases handle every SKU the six lines run.
- Barcode detection identifies each SKU and diverts it to its own bay
- VMECA magic-gripper cup count set by vacuum test on the customer's own cartons, with the supplier
- Gripper built around the UR20 tool flange
- Recipes decide the pick — light cartons double-picked under 20kg combined, heavy cartons singly
- Pallet patterns selected from a Robotiq HMI
- Wrong-orientation cartons alarm and divert to the recirculation conveyor
Conveyor loop rebuilt to control spacing and speed
Carton spacing and speed had to be ours to control.
- Loop rebuilt in CAD from the Interroll OEM files
- 9.6m straight section replaced with one we supplied
- Two transfer conveyors per palletiser, carton pushers designed to suit
- Zone control timed to the box centre so cartons sit square in the pickup bay
- Gap detection holds the 90-degree conveyor until a speed difference opens a gap, lifting scanning accuracy
- Cell wired in our workshop, split at the conveyor legs for transport and rebuilt on site
- Multicontrols reporting to the Allen-Bradley PLC, with safety scanners and area guarding validated
Production data recorded pallet by pallet
The palletising software did not report boxes on the pallet, so we wrote the reporting.
- Box-counting algorithm written on the robots, with a reporting tab added to the HMI
- Hourly and shift databases fed by a data logger
- PLC master database recording data per pallet per bay
- Scripted customer-specific filtering, plus a partial-pallet button for short pallets
- Handshaking between PLC and HMI so boxes-per-SKU reports cleanly
The results
- Six operators a shift down to one, across three shifts a day
- Repetitive lifting and its injury risk taken off the packaging lines
- Both shifts trained, with four site champions taking on robot and PLC programming
- New SKUs still added by us as the customer's range changes