Palletizing Robots

Manually placing items on pallets is very labor intensive. It cause undo employee costs, but also risks of injury.

A palletizer is a machine which provides automatic means for stacking cases of goods or products onto a pallet.

Manually placing boxes on pallets can be time consuming and expensive; it can also put unusual stress on workers.^[1] The first mechanized palletizer was designed, built, and installed in 1948 by a company formerly known as Lamson Corp. There are specific types of palletizers including the row-forming which were introduced in the early 1950s. In row-forming palletizing applications loads are arranged on a row forming area and then moved onto a different area where layer forming takes place. This process repeats until a full layer of goods and products are configured to be placed on a pallet.

The in-line palletizer was developed in the 1970s when higher speeds were needed for palletizing. This palletizer type utilizes a continuous motion flow divider that guides the goods into the desired area on the layer forming platform.

Robotic palletizers were introduced in the early 1980s and have an end of arm tool (end effector) to grab the product from a conveyor or layer table and position it onto a pallet. Both conventional and robotic palletizers can receive product at a high elevation.

Industrial palletizing refers to loading and unloading parts, boxes or other items to or from pallets.

Automated palletizing refers to an industrial robot palletizer performing the application automatically.

Robot palletizing can be seen in many industries including food processing, manufacturing, and shipping.

A robotic palletizer is able to handle heavy payloads and have large horizontal and vertical reaches that allow parts to be palletized from varying distances.

Various end-of-arm-tooling styles allow flexibility of different types of robot palletization. Bag grippers encompass an item and support it on the bottom, while suction and magnetic grippers typically handle more ridged items and grip them from the top.

Referenced from: https://www.robots.com/applications/palletizing

Improve plant and process cleanliness while streamlining plant and warehouse operations. They optimize your facility’s lift truck productivity, reduce labor, shipping and damaged product costs. They can also prevent injuries due to product mishap.