KC Robotics Goes To The Salt Mines

The problem faced by our customer was all about weight. Salt is heavy; salt bags weigh 50 pounds. Without a palletizing robot, an employee had to lift 50-pound bags all day and stack them on a pallet. By the end of the day, production slowed; throughout the year, employee injuries resulted in down time and higher costs.

Using a Fanuc S-420iF/RJ2 Robot, KC Robotics designed a system consisting of four conveyors and a specialized gripper to lift the bags. To begin the process, employees bag and seal crushed salt on the first conveyor. Bags of salt continue on a route to the second conveyor to be re-oriented for a vibrating conveyor. The vibrating conveyor vibrates the salt in the bags until the bags lay flat. The flattened bags transfer to a locating conveyor where the robot picks up the bags with a custom-made gripper. The gripper palletizes the bags on a skid in seven layers. A forklift operator moves the skid and replaces it with a new skid. The process begins again. Review out Palletizing Robot video to see the whole process:

Palletizing Robot Moving Salt Bags

This customer benefits from robotics in several ways:

1. The process is smoother and faster than a manual operation.
2. The robot eliminated a difficult to fill employee position by doing the heavy lifting.
3. Employee health problems and injuries associated with heavy lifting are eliminated.
4. The vibrator packs the bags flatter, allowing more bags per pallet.

The customer should expect this palletizing robot system to pay for itself in less than eighteen months.

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