Typically, the final step of a manufacturing process is to package what you’ve made, put it on a pallet, then ship it out the door or store it in the warehouse. While palletizing is one of the most common functions across manufacturing in all industries, it is hardly a “solved” problem. There are many different approaches, from people manually stacking boxes, to complex conveyor systems with pushers aligning the boxes, all the way to fully automated robotic palletizing systems.

Intensive programming requirements have long been the hurdle with traditional robotic arm based palletizing systems. They require hands-on time with a technician to program all of the various positions. Then, each and every time you need to add a new stacking scheme, you will need to repeat the process again.

Luckily, a company called Rapid Robotics is changing all of that.

Rapid Means Robots…FAST!

Rapid Robotics is making it easy to integrate robot arms into your process by simplifying the programming requirements. Much like a computer—which won’t work without a program—a robot arm needs to be programmed so it knows how to move throughout space. In addition to moving the arm to the right point in space, you also need to account for various grippers, tools, or other end effectors the robot uses to interact with the world.

This tooling can include:

• Grippers to pick up, manipulate, and move items

• Suction devices to pick up slipsheets of cardboard to put between layers on a pallet

• Welding tools for robot welding stations

• Riveters for assembly stations

• Any other tool you might use in a manufacturing process

By taking advantage of spatial scanning technology, vision systems, and virtual simulation software, Rapid Robotics builds a 3D model of your process. They then handle all the programming by leveraging their AI and machine learning software. This is similar to the approach we took with our Virtual Reality Landfill Monitoring project, although Rapid Robotics is taking it to another universe here!

Next, Rapid Robotics analyzes your parts, boxes, or whatever the robots need to interact with, and then designs an optimal tooling library to meet your needs. They take advantage of modern technology like 3D printing to speed up this process and quickly iterate to find the best solution.

By performing this work in a virtual environment, Rapid Robotics can iterate through thousands of possible scenarios to find the optimal paths for your robot. Once everyone is happy with the motion control, they assemble a mock workcell in their shop to factory test and commission their Rapid Machine Operator (RMO) cell. This allows Rapid Robotics to fine tune the system with live parts and tooling, and verify everything functions as expected.

Once factory tested and commissioned in the shop, Rapid Robotics ships the robot to your facility. They travel on-site to verify that everything from their shop works in your process. Since Rapid Robotics has completed the programming and verification before shipping the RMO, Rapid Robotics can typically commission it in less than a day. This means you will be up and running with a more efficient process within hours. Compare this to the weeks or months timeline for a traditional programming and commissioning process for a robot arm.

Integrate with Ignition For Full Operational Awareness

Using a robotic palletizing system is a wonderful upgrade for many processes, however simply adding a robot doesn’t give you additional information into how your palletizing system is operating. The last thing anyone should be doing in 2023 is installing another information silo into a manufacturing process.

This is where Rapid Robotics’ innovation with their RMO combines with Corso Systems’ impressive Ignition experience to give you a fully integrated system where you can get information the moment the robot touches its first item or box.

A palletizing system is an ideal candidate for integration into a Manufacturing Execution System (MES). Not only can you easily track Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), it is a great way to integrate with your ERP system to generate shipping labels and a Bill of Lading for each pallet or shipment going out the door. This streamlines your overall business processes, and gives the folks shipping the pallet out the door the information they need, right when they need it.

Tracking OEE on a palletizing line is an easy first place to start, especially when using a robotic palletizing system. You can easily track the uptime of the machine, and by using alarms and alerts in the Rapid Robotics software package, track any downtime events in realtime. You will know very quickly if your palletizing system is blocked by the wrapping machine, starved for material, or humming along nicely. You can also track cycle times based on the robot motion for each box. Based on the stacking algorithm, you can even dig deep into the data to see if various locations on the pallet take extra time and can be optimized for better throughput.

Expand Your Capabilities Quickly

Robotic palletizing is a great first step into fully automated processes. It’s highly repeatable, low skilled, does not require human intervention, and from an ergonomic perspective, it can be difficult for people. These attributes make it an ideal candidate for a robot arm. Now, your operators can work on tasks better suited for people.

Once you observe the power of robotics in your process—including how they work with your overall staffing goals by cutting labor costs or freeing up your operators—it is easy to find other parts of the process where robotics can support your operational goals.

It’s relatively easy to taking advantage of the Rapid Robotics workflow to add additional robots to any part of your process. Once you have the foundation of an Ignition gateway adding all of the insights and information from every robot and piece of equipment in your facility, optimizing your process is a breeze!

Wrapping Up

Applying these new approaches to robotic palletizing makes it easy to put a repeatable palletizing system with full operational visibility into action.

Rapid Robotics can apply their research and information gathering at your facility to build a virtual model of your palletizing area. Then they will program the robot for all of your stacking patterns, and then quickly deploy the robot. Corso Systems will then integrate everything with Ignition, giving you realtime metrics for cycle times, and throughput, as well as simplify the process of loading new parts by pre-populating the RMO with information on the next products coming down the line.

As you use of the system evolves and expands, it will be easy to leverage your virtual model to add new stacking algorithms, allowing you to handle any products you might need to palletize in the future.

If you have any questions on how you can use Ignition, Rapid Robotics, or any of the other services Corso Systems offers to improve your manufacturing operation please reach out and let us know!