FINLAND food manufacturer Myllyn Paras has automated its palletising operations by utilising collaborative robots designed for tasks that are heavy or too strenuous for humans to carry out.
Together with Dimalog Oy, an OMRON certified partner and system integrator which specialises in mobile robotics and cobots, the company developed a robotics palletising solution.
Myllyn Paras runs the oldest mill in Finland, which processes some 75,000 tonnes of grain each year. The firm had been carrying out palletising manually, but the task was strenuous and the turnover of employees quite high.
Aki Hänninen, Dimalog Oy’s project manager, explained, “At the start of this project, we visited Myllyn Paras to learn more about the space available and the items that needed to be palletised. As a result, we recommended the OMRON TM12 cobot. The robot needed a specific type of gripper that was designed and tested at our premises.”
The OMRON TM12 can reach up to 1300mm with a payload of up to 12kg, and boasts a typical speed of 1.3m/s.
The cobot comes with integrated safety features and an in-built vision system. The integral camera can recognise objects ‘under almost any lighting conditions’, OMRON added.
The new cobot solution is being used in palletising processes involving a range of items, such as batches that include packs of oatmeal. The weight of a batch can vary between five and eight kg, depending on the product. OMRON explained the palletising cell was secured using a combination of safety fences and an OMRON safety laser scanner. This means that if someone enters the safety zone, the cobot will immediately stop working.
The introduction of the cobots is also said to have reduced the issues related to workloads at the workstation. Myllyn Paras employees have revealed that working at this station has been a much more pleasant experience.
