A popular family-owned wine company from NSW approached John Hart Automation to implement a robotic palletising system into their cask filling and packaging line.
The robotic automation solution utilises a Fanuc M410iB/450 4-axis robot to palletise casks of wine from two individual cask filling lines, a 2 and 4 litre line and a 10 and 15 litre line simultaneously at a maximum rate of 249 cases per hour.
The robotic automation system also needed to handle pallets from a common infeed and slip sheets between each layer.
John Hart developed a large multi-tasking robotic gripper that was able to grip the various sized wine casks with pressure control as well as pick and place pallets and handle slip sheets from a fixed stack.
John Hart supplied two infeed product roller conveyors with product accumulation and alignment.
Two outfeed chain conveyors were supplied in three sections (packing station, transfer station, unloading station) so that pallets could be removed or transferred within the system while the robot was palletising.
One infeed chain conveyor was installed to supply stacks of pallets to the robot. The robot had the ability to detect the position and height of the infeed pallets and then move them to an outfeed conveyor when required.
John Hart installed and commissioned an Allen Bradley Compact Logix PLC and Panel View HMI for process control and operation.
Overall safety was controlled and monitored, including the three muted light curtains from a central Pilz PNOZ safety controller.