Cobots for the fast picking of unsorted products
- Compact automation solution with two tog.519 cobots
- AI-supported image recognises picked products
- Ongoing, camera-supported product inspection
Requirements
Quick placement of unsorted items
Companies don’t always package their own products themselves. In many cases, they outsource this step to contract packers. Outsourcing gives companies access to an extensive portfolio of cutting-edge machines – thereby saving time and money. The ‘MultiPac Verpackung + Montage GmbH’ co-packer, based in Ellwangen in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, is specialised in packaging services for several leading consumer goods brands. They package a wide range of products in medium and large quantities into folding boxes, blister packs, trays, shrink film and cartons, among many other types of packaging.
The company’s own machine fleet is therefore quite extensive, and since the summer of 2024, it has also included two tog.519 cobots from Schubert. Due to an increasing variety of products and variants, as well as rising labour and site costs, the company needed an efficient and flexible solution for packaging processes that had previously been done manually. The specific challenge was to pick up a wide variety of unsorted products such as tubes, glue sticks and air freshener clips from the conveyor belt – using a pick & place system – and place them into prepared trays.
MultiPac needed a high-performance, state-of-the-art automation solution that could achieve up to 60 picks per minute. Achraf Ben Salem, Head of Cobot Development, reports: “When the decision-makers at MultiPac thought of us, they initially had our ultra-efficient TLM machines in mind – and ruled us out at first. In this case, our top-loading systems could not be connected to an existing packaging line. Also, this solution would have required more space than was available at MultiPac. Fortunately, our tog.519 cobot proved to be a very convincing alternative.”
Solution
Easy-to-use high-performance cobot
Schubert’s tog.519 cobot can pick up to 70 products one by one from a disordered pile and place them accurately into the designated location. Its success is ensured by the AI-supported image processing developed by Schubert which recognises the products it picks up and the environment in which they are to be placed. As a result, MultiPac can dispense with the laborious task of separating tubes, pens or fragrance clips, for example.
The tog.519 cobot has another unique feature as well: as soon as it has picked up a product, it continues to collect information about its condition, checks it and adjusts its work steps accordingly. For example, when placing an item into a tray, the cobot has to make sure that the product opening points in a certain direction. This involves the cobot holding the items briefly in front of a camera, which recognises the opening. Depending on where the opening is located, the cobot either places the product as it is or first turns it.
The tog.519 cobot from Schubert has won us over. Our packaging systems run more reliably and with significantly less downtime. The cobots themselves work smoothly and are very well received by our employees.
Matthias Mayer-Böhringer
CEO, MultiPac
Technical details
- Up to 70 picks per minute from a disorganised pile
- Coot floor space of six square metres
- Product-specific adaptation of the work steps
The cobot picks up products, in this case fragrance clips, from a disorganised pile and places them accurately into the designated location.
