Cobot Palletizer

Cobot Palletizer

The increasingly efficient cobot palletizer helps you complete product palletizing and depalletizing faster and more accurately, significantly cutting your labor costs.

It has penetrated food, medicine, 3C, daily chemicals, e-commerce, and other industries.

If neat arrangement and palletizing are a must for your products before shipment, you will wish to introduce a cobot palletiser, which requires no coding, fully mobile deployment, and 2 pallets of continuous operation to maximize your palletizing efficiency.

You are welcome to contact us via Email or WhatsApp if you want to know more about such a powerful palletizing helper.

Email: info@sirosilo.com

WhatsApp: +8617312124727

What is a Palletizer

The palletizer quickly and efficiently stacks bags, bales, boxes, or trays onto pallets (wooden, plastic) in a certain arrangement.

Stacks of bags, bales, boxes, or trays can be easily transported by forklift for warehousing or stretch wrapping.

In addition, stack storage saves warehouse space, and stack shipping cuts the number of packages.

Types of Palletizers

3 types of palletizers for you to choose from:

Conventional

Mechanical conventional palletizers have been developed for fifty or sixty years and consist of various high-performance mechanical components.

It operates very fast because it integrates an upstream accumulation conveyor for quick product release, and can palletize at speeds of 40 bags or 200 boxes per minute, but it is only suitable for palletizing one SKU at a time.

Robotic

Robotic palletizing equipment introduces robotic arms to lift materials one by one or in batches and stack the materials on preset pallets.

This process continues cyclically, with materials accumulating layer by layer into a preset pattern to facilitate following storage and shipping.

Cobot

Collaborative robot palletizers are also a type of robotic palletizer.

Unlike standard robotic arms that operate independently, collaborative robots can palletize alongside factory employees.

Thanks to the sensors integrated into the cobot, which can detect people or objects around it, collisions are avoidable to protect the safety of anyone around the palletizer.

Cobot Palletizer

On November 29, 2023, Danish collaborative robot giant Universal Robot launched its latest model UR30, which has a maximum payload of 30 kg.

Collaborative robots are evolving faster and faster, and they have begun to spread like wildfire, which will also promote the popularization of palletizing cobots.

What is a Cobot Palletizer?

Cobot stands for the collaborative robot, and a palletizer is a packaging machine that grabs boxes, bags, and bundles from a conveyor and stacks them on pallets for subsequent shipment or storage.

As a special type of robotic palletizing equipment, it collaborates with other employees in the factory to complete product palletizing.

You will usually find it at the end of the production line, stability, precision, and high efficiency are its characteristics.

Components

The collaborative palletizer contains the following components:

• Cobot
• English HMI
• Lift Column
• Power Panel
• EOAT
• Mobile Frame
• Pallet Load
• …

By setting up and running the program through the English HMI, the collaborative robot is controllable to complete the palletizing.

Working Principle

The following steps summarize how a collaborative palletizer works:

• Place the pallet into the pallet load and fix it;
• Connect the power, add a conveyor sensor, and attach air to the end of arm tool;
• Use the pallet configurator on the HMI to define your recipe and enter pallet and case dimensions for column palletizing;
• Or use the drag-and-drop configurator to design a pallet pattern, the recipe will be stored for future use after completion;
• Press the start button;
• The collaborative arm moves along the preset path directly above the product, and the end grabber picks up the product and places it on the pallet.

How Fast is a Cobot Palletizer?

The palletizing speed of collaborative robots is about 10 boxes per minute, and the Robotiq cobot palletiser can reach 13 boxes per minute.

Many people think this speed is too slow and not even as good as an excellent manual palletizer.

But these people ignore an important point, humans will feel tired, need to eat, and need to rest, but cobots can complete palletizing with high quality at the same speed for 24 hours in a row.

Benefits

The following benefits of palletizing robots are especially attractive to potential clients:

Small & Compact

The diameter of the lightweight collaborative robotic arm is only 250mm, and its area with two pallets (1.1m x 1.1m) is only about 3 square meters.

Safe & Stable

Work side by side with humans, no need for isolation by safety fences, high reliability and safety.

10 levels of collision and sensor safety detection.

16 safety I/O interfaces, safe in the event of a single failure.

No drop in power failure.

Flexible

Integrated design, lightweight, and flexible.

A forklift can transfer it to different packaging lines.

Easy Programming

Half an hour to master the programming process, and one hour to complete the simple programming.

In the visual programming interface, you only need to input the pallet and carton dimensions and the preset palletizing pattern.

Quick Installation

For simple palletizing, the installation duration is 30 minutes;

As for complex palletizing, one day is enough.

Collaboration Combination Choices

Quick switch between different scenarios, such as human-robot, dual-robot, multi-robot collaboration, etc.

Through recipe management and visual design, various packaging solutions are selectable, and the one-click switch greatly shortens the production line changeover time.

Wide Application

Collaborative robots integrate innovative grippers, computer vision, and machine learning systems to pick up a variety of objects in consumption, manufacturing, and special industries, such as food, medicine, 3C, daily chemicals, and e-commerce.

Shorter ROI

Many customers recovered their investment in less than a year after introducing palletizing cobots, and some outstanding customers even took just 6 months to become profitable.

Cobot Box Palletizer Machine

The most common collaborative robot palletizers currently on the market are almost all designed for cartons.

There are very few product pages and videos about cobots palletizing bags, bundles, and trays on Google and YouTube.

The video below shows a collaborative robot palletizer in action.

SiroSilo collaborative robot palletizers have entered various industries:

• Agricultural & Sideline
• Building Materials
• Condiments
• Cosmetic
• Dairy
• Explosion-proof Aerosol
• Food & Beverage
• Frozen Products
• Fruit
• Printing
• Home Appliances
• Medicine & Pharmaceutical
• …

No matter which industry your product comes from, as long as your tertiary packaging is a carton or box, we can customize a suitable collaborative robot palletizing solution for you, you are welcome to contact us for in-depth discussions.

Robotic Palletizer Manufacturer

World-renowned robot palletizer manufacturers include Fanuc, Universal Robots, Omron, etc.

Chinese collaborative robot industry is now attracting a lot of investment, and collaborative robot manufacturers are springing up like mushrooms after rain.

The quality of collaborative robots produced by different manufacturers varies greatly.

Please remember that you get what you pay for, especially in the Chinese market.

To receive orders at a low price, some suppliers can only replace some collaborative robot parts with low-priced and low-quality ones.

You still have to find the right person to connect with, and the right contact means the right consequence.

Cobot Palletizer Price

In April 2022, Premier Tech Ltd. published a blog post on its website about the 10 most frequently asked questions in the palletizing industry, which mentioned the price range of conventional palletizers and robotic palletizers:

The price seems quite expensive.

In the Chinese market, the collaborative robot palletizer price is already far lower, which is very attractive.

If you plan to own a collaborative robot palletizer, you are welcome to contact us via email or WhatsApp to get a jaw-dropping quote.

Cobot Palletiser Choice

To select the best collaborative palletizer for you, we suggest you consider the following aspects.

Requirements Assessment

First, identify your SKUs that need to be palletized, and then evaluate your palletizing requirements based on the product type, packaging style (bag, box, bundle, tray), packaging gross weight, packaging size, and palletizing pattern corresponding to each SKU.

Payload & Reach

Payload and reach are key indicators for a collaborative robot palletizer.

The payload must be greater than the gross weight of your packaging, and the reach must cover your maximum palletizing width and height.

Currently, the maximum payload of the collaborative robot palletizer is 30 kilograms.

The theoretical maximum arm span is 1900mm, but the actual arm span is less than this value because the robotic arm is always in a bent state when working.

If the arm span is not up to standard, the range can also be extended by adding lift columns.

Safety

To ensure the safety of your collaborators, choose a safe enough collaborative robot, that is, a collaborative robot that integrates force-torque sensors and collision detection.

In addition, some collaborative robots work with auxiliary safety equipment such as area scanners and light curtains to provide double protection for your operators.

Foolproof Programming

Cobot programming should be fool-proof because few front-line operators have basic knowledge of programming.

Collaborative robots equipped with an intuitive graphical programming interface are the first choice, which can significantly save programming time.

Operators can learn, configure and operate in a few minutes, and then adjust and convert SKUs for different production needs.

End-of-arm Tools

End-of-arm tooling (EOAT) is a critical component that interacts with products and pallets.

Suppliers should provide matching grippers and vacuum systems according to your different packaging styles, such as cardboard boxes, bags, pallets, etc., to maximize palletizing efficiency.

After-sales Technical Support

Select those suppliers who can provide you with guidance videos for installation, operation, and maintenance of collaborative robots, and provide you with timely technical support during the warranty period and even throughout the life cycle of the robot.

Conventional vs. Robotic vs. Cobot Palletizers

The table below compares the differences between these three different palletizers.

	Conventional	Robotic	Cobot
Payload	100-500Kg	50-320Kg	30Kg
Palletizing Height	2000mm	2000mm	2400mm (Lift Column)
Speed	40 bags/min | 150 boxes/min	20 cases/min	10-13 CPM
Repeat Positioning Precision	±0.01mm	±1mm	±0.04mm
Programming	Difficult	Easy	Especially Easy
Installation Duration	5-7 Days	4 Hours	30 Minutes
Power Consumption	6-10Kw	3-7Kw	2Kw
Footprint	Badly Big	Big	Compact
Noise	Loud	Little Bit Loud	Low
Weight	1000-5000Kg	450-1150Kg	30Kg
Versatility	1 SKU	1 SKU	Multiple SKUs
ROI	Little Bit Longer	Long	Short
Safety	No Safety Sensor (Fence Isolation)	No Safety Sensor (Fence Isolation)	Safety Sensor
Scenes	Single Scenario	Single Scenario	Human-robot, Dual-robot, Multi-robot Collaboration
Applicable Industries	Limited	Wide	Wide