A filling system for processing plastic bottles of 50 to 150ml capacity. An employee removes the bottles and caps from an unsorted cardboard box and places them on a collecting belt conveyor from which they are fed into the machine. There, the bottles are filled and labelled and the caps screwed on. The finished products are then packaged by another employee. The cycle time is several seconds.
Problem:
The products manufactured on the machine vary frequently. Conventional bottle sorting would be insufficiently flexible, since it must be adaptable to the product being packaged. Given changing loads on the machine, temporary workers are often engaged. An option for feeding bottles and caps (both cylindrical objects) from an unsorted box into a machine is therefore desirable. The transition to the new solution must be as fast and simple as possible.
Solution:
These two robots can feed both bottles and caps, so only one employee is required to operate the machine. Because object detection works with all cylindrical products of similar size, resetting for a new product is very easy.
3D printing reduces development costs and accelerates adjustment to a new product. Replacement part manufacture is also very easy.
A conservative cost estimate for the robot cell, including development is €10,000. Two such cells can eliminate personnel costs of €20/h (which is €160/day and €3,200/month). Therefore, a return on investment can be expected in about six months.
