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Starting point / Task definition |
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The products traveling down the conveyors from the blow molding machines at RPC Verpackungen Kutenholz all look highly familiar. Mainly from our own bathroom shelves. Bottles for shampoos and a variety of cosmetic products are boxed here by KUKA robots, ready for transportation to renowned customers who will label them and fill them with their products.
At RPC, more than 40 blow molding machines are filled with plastic granulate In each machine, the required additives such as colorings or UV absorbers are added. Next, this mixture is plasticized by means of heat and friction, and extruded in the form of tubes at the blow head. Each tube is then removed and inflated into a water-cooled mold. Once the plastic container has had its edges trimmed and the opening at its mouth checked with a sensor, it is transferred on a conveyor to a packing station. Here they are packaged in cartons. Linear gantries are only able to grip in line with the box, which means that the articles cannot be conveyed in a curve; this would have made system planning more complex. The decision to modernize production was taken by RPC two years ago. To this end, the company teamed up with automation specialists besecke GmbH & Co. KG, whose work included designing a system-wide control concept for simple operation of the entire system. Once the article parameters have been defined, they can then be transferred to any of the packaging stations. | |
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Implementation / Solution |
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There they are picked up off the conveyor by a KUKA robot of type KR 16, which places them carefully in a box. The KUKA robot gives us the necessary flexibility for this application. For example, it can grip a range of different bottle shapes – unlike conventional solutions.
A further advantage is that the robot is flexible with regard to the direction of gripping. The KUKA robots are also experts in gentle handling. In most cases, the bottles are packed in a standing position so that they cannot get dented while they are still warm. The robot therefore grips them by the mouth before placing them in the box. After the articles have been packed, they are transported in their boxes via a central conveyor system in order to be palletized. Depending on the weight and size of the box, this is done either manually or automatically. “Some of the boxes are too heavy to be handled by people,” Wilfried Brandt explains. Finally, the boxes are transferred on pallets to the warehouse. | |
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System components / Scope of supply |
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Results / Success |
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| The advantages of the robot cell are also apparent for the operator, who can easily keep tabs on all processes, thanks to the visualization on the Multipanel. There are currently three KR 16 robots in service at RCP. The employees enjoy working with them very much. Four employees received basic robot training at KUKA College in Gersthofen, Germany. | |
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