While palletizing cartons is a regular automation application, doing so from a cold room (with regular cleaning done with hosed water) is a specific challenge. Motion Controls Robotics overcame these by using vacuum technology from Piab supplied by Neff Group Distributors.
Bringing sweet tea and juice to the market requires palletizing the cases filled with respective bottles to be palletized for transportation to retail outlets. Due to their perishable nature, they are stored in cold rooms. A customer turned to Motion Controls Robotics Inc. (MCRI) to replace an inefficient existing system in which the vacuum cups and pumps utilized did not cope well with the average temperature in the cold room of 35°F (1.7°C). This caused vacuum cups to become rigid and pumps to not provide enough vacuum to hold cases leading to regular drop downs. A better system had to be found to handle cardboard cases weighing up to 42 lbs (19 kg).
Due to the wash-down process, any kind of area gripper consisting of closed-cell technical foam had to be excluded. Fork-style tools were also not an option due to limited workspace.