Industrial robots in packaging applications are generally performing traditional tasks like palletizing and case packing, known as secondary packaging. They also perform basic pick and place tasks like sorting, inspecting, inverting, stacking and pattern building. The entire system, including the robot, must be selected to accommodate the package, so many industrial robots are capable of performing these secondary packaging tasks. These applications constitute a mature market for industrial robots where reduced labor, operational flexibility, increased product quality, throughput efficiency, improved worker safety and smaller footprint are standard system benefits.
Let’s consider the use of robots in clean applications where they handle sensitive items like unpackaged food, pharmaceutical products or medical devices. These applications include primary packaging, product processing and medical procedures. These are neither traditional applications, nor are they a mature market for robots, but increasingly, robots are being used successfully in these applications to achieve the same system benefits as in secondary packaging.