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Robotics Brings Big Benefits to Bakery

Two identical monoblock cartoning/case packing systems produce a number of secondary and tertiary packaging formats, while robotic palletizing brings the automated line to a close.

For twin-pack cartons, the delta style robot picks bagged pans from the conveyor belt in the foreground, rotates them so that the ponytail is in the 12 o’clock position, and places them into a carton that is erected from a flat blank upstream.
For twin-pack cartons, the delta style robot picks bagged pans from the conveyor belt in the foreground, rotates them so that the ponytail is in the 12 o’clock position, and places them into a carton that is erected from a flat blank upstream.

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, T. Marzetti Company has a plant in Luverne, Ala., that makes frozen bakery products sold in supermarkets under its own Sister Schubert’s brand as well as under numerous private label brands. As demand for its offerings continued to grow, the plant found itself needing a more efficient way to handle manual cartoning, case packing, and palletizing. So management recently turned to robotic automation to reduce its increasingly unsustainable labor costs.

The product itself is dinner rolls in aluminum pans that consumers bake in the oven for 12 minutes or so. “In addition to dinner rolls,” notes Project Manager John Haenszel, “we have sweet goods like cinnamon, lemon, and blueberry rolls, for example. And we also make a sausage-and-cheese pinwheel. But the primary package is always a round aluminum pan.”

Primary packaging changed very little. It’s done on a bagger from Kliklok, a Syntegon company, that pulls clear film bags from wickets, inserts a filled pan, and clips the bag closed. The bagged pans then go into a spiral freezer. At this point it’s time for secondary and tertiary packaging, and this is where the transformation has occurred. A key automation upgrade came in the form of a robotic palletizing system from Schneider Packaging Equipment, a Pacteon company. But most impressive are the two upstream monoblock cartoning and case packing systems from Cama. Each IF299 monoblock is designed to run 45 bagged pans/min, and each system includes a Model IF315 top-load cartoning system featuring a vision-guided RB590 Triaflex delta style robot.

Cama has been supplying robots for more than 30 years now, offering a robotic loading unit with the latest open-architecture controls technology. In the case of the T. Marzetti machines, the controls are from Rockwell. “The idea is to offer equipment with built-in, customized robots, not arms that simply pick and place, but solutions conceived for specific packaging operations,” says Billy Goodman, managing director of Cama North America.

The monoblock system is part of Cama’s Breakthrough Generation (BTG) series, which features modular, scalable, and hygienically designed frameworks housing contemporary automation solutions. This includes advanced servo technology tightly coupled to vision systems and Cama’s robotic solutions, which have been developed in house to deal with the specific demands of secondary packaging. The vision system integrated by Cama includes a 3D Cognex camera.

Cama’s BTG Series machines are also based on a 100% digital platform that supports full Industry 4.0 capabilities, including Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and virtual testing, training, and operation. Furthermore, advanced component-identification systems can deliver rapid format changeovers, sometimes in as little as 15 minutes.

Each IF299 delivered to Marzetti had to be able to do two essential things. First, it had to orient incoming pans, and we’ll see why in a minute. Second, it had to produce either of two formats. Format 1 is twin-pack cartons followed by six cartons into cases. With this format, consumers pick a twin-pack carton from the freezer case. Format 2, on the other hand, is a no-carton approach, where bagged pans go directly into cases in either 6- or 12-count arrangements. In this format, consumers pick as many individual pans from the freezer case as they desire. Let’s look at Format 1 first, where the robotic cartoner puts two pans into wraparound cartons and the case packer puts six twin-pack cartons into wraparound cases. 

Exiting the freezer

It starts with bagged pans exiting the spiral freezer about 10 ft above floor level. A decline conveyor takes the pans down to floor level, where manual labor is used to place half the pans on a conveyor leading to one Cama system and the other half on a conveyor leading to the other Cama. Just ahead of both Cama systems are X-ray detection systems from Anritsu that detect foreign objects and cause pans with such objects to be rejected from the line.The tooling on this two-axis robotic pusher presses the top flap closed. Then the pusher slides the finished carton at a right angle to a staging area. In doing so, the pusher pushes the preceding twin-pack carton out of the staging area and onto another right angle conveyor takeaway that leads toward the case packing station.The tooling on this two-axis robotic pusher presses the top flap closed. Then the pusher slides the finished carton at a right angle to a staging area. In doing so, the pusher pushes the preceding twin-pack carton out of the staging area and onto another right angle conveyor takeaway that leads toward the case packing station.

Like any plastic bread bag gathered at the neck with a plastic clip closure, the Marzetti packages have a “ponytail.” The orientation of the ponytail is completely random when packages reach the infeed of a Cama system. This was challenge number one for the Cama engineers.

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