A 22-year partnership with industrial robot manufacturer FANUC has been hailed as a ‘key factor’ in Icelandic firm Samey Robotics’ role in ‘revolutionising’ the international supply chain for fresh fish.
Specialising in the design, manufacture and installation of bespoke automation for the food processing industry, Samey Robotics has delivered over 150 projects across 10 countries including the UK, Iceland, Norway, and the Faroe Islands.
At the heart of many of its solutions is FANUC’s M-410 series of industrial palletising robots. With over 100 FANUC M-410 robots already purchased by Samey Robotics, the company currently has a further 25 on order.
“We know we can trust FANUC products to deliver time and time again in harsh operating environments while handling delicate and high-margin fresh produce,” said Kristjan Karl Adalsteinsson, Samey Robotics’ chief sales & marketing officer.
Samey Robotics was founded 32 years ago, just south of Reykjavik. The firm is said to have ‘revolutionised’ the fresh fish supply chain, with distribution handled by automated centres supported by robotics. FANUC explained that, in many cases, fish may be landed, processed and shipped to the customer within just 24 hours.
“An order can be placed in London, logged onto one of our customers’ operating systems in Iceland or another coastal country, and a robot will automatically start feeding the raw produce into the production cell,” Kristjan explained. “In less than an hour, it will be palletised and on its way to being shipped, without anyone having to send an email, take a phone call or make a decision as to when to start or stop the system. The whole process, from order to delivery, is fully automated.”
As well as the ability to ‘gently and rapidly’ handle large quantities of fresh produce, any robotic solutions specified by Samey Robotics also must be ‘robust and reliable’.
“Given the nature of our clients’ supply chain, the fish will spoil if production stops for any length of time,” Kristjan added. “Some of our customers handle up to 500 tonnes of fresh produce per day, so unexpected downtime is simply not an option. The reliability of FANUC robots has been a huge factor in our joint success.”
FANUC said a ‘perfect storm’ of rising labour costs, post-Covid digital transformation and affordable automation has helped drive a ‘surge’ in industrial robot installations throughout the food and beverage processing industry.
Oliver Selby, robotics business development manager for FANUC UK, added, “We have a number of long-standing client relationships, but to go from strength to strength like we have with Samey Robotics is especially rewarding. Key to our partnership is transparency. It’s a trait which runs throughout our business, right from the very top at our headquarters in Japan down to our delivery drivers meeting clients on the ground.
“This builds trust and gives our customers confidence that they can rely on us to deliver what we’ve promised.”
FANUC has recently started supplying Samey Robotics with an alternative to the M-410: the M-2000. On the inbound supply chain direct from the boat, fresh fish is loaded directly from 460kg totes into the fish processing equipment by the M-2000, which is described as the ‘strongest’ 6-axis robot on the market, boasting a handling capacity of up to 2.3 tonnes and a maximum reach of up to 4.7m.
