CASE
Fast depalletizing of empty jars with a powerful suction gripper
Thanks to an intelligent gripper with a suction bar, our robot at Sandro Vanini ensures that the empty jars delivered are depalletized quickly. The sensor-controlled depalletizer therefore fits in perfectly with the philosophy of the Ticino delicatessen manufacturer: tradition and innovation.
The challenge
The delicatessen products of the Ticino-based company Sandro Vanini are available in stores throughout Europe. Targeted automation was needed to reduce the workload on employees and increase production volumes at the same time – without replacing traditional methods. Depalletizing the delivered empty jars proved to be the ideal way to automate the process. Previously, these were transferred from pallets to the work table using laborious but less demanding manual work.
One challenge in automating this process was the variable height of the layers to be cleared: This is because, depending on the loading height of the pallet, the jars are either at floor level or up to 2 meters high. And the system had to be compatible with around 30 different types of jars, which also vary in height.
The solution
We developed a suction bar with a vacuum system as a gripper for the pick-and-place solution. Thanks to its large suction surface and high suction power, it can remove around 100 jars – around a third of the pallet surface – in a single operation. The gripper also has a search function that uses a sensor to scan the pallet height and recognize the height at which the jars to be cleared are located. The gripper also automatically removes the plastic layer pads for transport protection.
At the end of each cycle, the gripper places the jars safely on the conveyor belt that leads to the filling system. After a short time, the machine had already proven itself in everyday work and set its first records with over 50,000 jars a day.
»The robot worked perfectly from day one and was welcomed by our employees almost like a ›colleague‹. Thanks to the enormous reduction in workload, we can now concentrate on other, more conceptual tasks.«
Beatrice Fasana, Managing Director
Sandro Vanini SA
The project
As part of the design and development of the system, we carried out several feasibility studies as well as test set-ups and test runs in-house. In this way, we ensured that installation and commissioning at the customer's premises only took 3 days. We also coordinated the collaboration with local suppliers. Marco Bader (project management, design), Aron Spigaglia (software programming) and Roland Lüchinger and Jim Gürber (on-site assembly, commissioning) were involved from the Robotec team.
