How many businesses require a stationary packaging robot that repeats a single process for its entire usable life? Not many in today’s market, where high-mix/low-volume has become the norm.

Packaging systems based on modular, flexible collaborative robots from Universal Robots (UR) grow with your company and easily adapt to new products and changes in production. Lightweight UR robots can even be implemented as mobile cells that can be redeployed multiple times in a day, wherever production needs help.

At PACK EXPO 2017, Universal Robots will showcase an innovative mobile packaging system. Designed by UR Certified System Integrator, Allied Technology, the system includes a UR collaborative robot, conveyor, and vision guidance.

Collaborative robots are user-friendly, redeployable, and easy to use

A defining feature of collaborative robots is a built-in safety system that allows human operators to work side-by-side with the robot. But Universal Robots has expanded the collaborative concept to include user-friendliness, redeployability, and simple setup.

Whether it is adjusting to seasonal lines or to variations in co-packing lines, employees can teach the robot new tasks as production schedules change. Human coworkers simply move the robotic arm and touch points on the teach pendant to change the robot’s movements without programming experience. 

“We see a collaborative robot as a tool on demand—one that can be quickly transitioned between packaging tasks to streamline production planning,” says Craig Tomita, Area Sales Manager.

Mobile, tabletop packaging system on display at PACK EXPO 2017

UR will be showcasing its robots’ ability to deal with variation in volumes, design, material handling, and process sequences at PACK EXPO. Attendees will see an innovative new packaging system design by UR Certified System Integrator Allied Technology.

“We believe a robot cell should be modular, flexible, and easy to use,” says Mike Halley, president of Allied Technology. “The systems we design are scalable and allow a company to easily make changes when production has new requirements or a new product to run. The UR robots are simple to program from a low- and high-level standpoint and UR holds the collaborative certifications required to support our unique, flexible robot cell designs.”

Allied Technology’s self-contained, mobile tabletop packaging system includes:

• Intelligent part feeder using vision guidance to singulate multiple different small parts
• Articulating end-of-arm tooling to pick multiple parts
• Conveyor tracking and automation for crowding groups of parts on a conveyor
• Variety pack case loading and unloading of cases to be resorted

Visit Universal Robots at PACK EXPO booth S-8257. Or request a free demo today.