Robots make a good case: as robots improve in versatility and decrease in price, their use in case packing increases

Case packing used to be a relatively simple operation--as simple as dropping or pushing cartons or other packages into cases.

But mechanical case packing is no longer the only option. The advent of robotics means that packagers have alternatives, based on what they're packing and how fast.

Robots are most commonly seen in palletizing, but as they have increased in versatility and decreased in price, they have become viable for case packing.

Gravity-drop and other mechanical case packing systems are useful for certain straightforward applications, says Dick Mitchell, sales manager for Fallas Automation, which markets both robotic and gravity drop case packing systems.

"If a product needs to be case packed to a lay-flat orientation--and it's not fragile like bags of baking mixes, pasta or hard candy--the least expensive way to put that product in a case is with gravity," Mitchell says. "But if that same product were to change in packaging design requiring a stand-up gable-style bag or carton design to where it now has to be vertically packed into a case, the application then becomes a robotic pick-and-place application."

End users are getting more comfortable with robotic case packing, says Carl Traynor, senior director of marketing at MotomanWhen [integrators] present solutions that don't have to do with robotics, [end users] say 'You're not listening. We will have a robotic case packing solution,'" Traynor says. "It's amazing how customers seem to be more or less demanding it."

Fast or flexible?

Most packaging equipment sets up a dichotomy between speed and flexibility: The more flexibility you have, the slower the system runs. That's not necessarily true when it comes to case packing, however.

"With a robotic system, we can load multiple cases at one time to achieve higher speeds. With a gravity system, that becomes a lot more difficult," says John French, director of sales and marketing for BluePrint Automation.

Nonetheless, flexibility is probably the biggest advantage a robotic case packing operation has over a mechanical side-entry or gravity-based alternative. Depending on the system's capabilities, changing product sizes, case configurations or any other parameter is a relatively simple matter.

When it's time to change over a robotic case packer, "you hit a couple of buttons, you change the end-of-line tooling, which is a couple of minutes, and you're off to the races," says John Moran, a product manager at Pearson Packaging Systems.

Another advantage for robotic case packers, in some applications, is gentle handling. This is especially important for smaller cartons that form several layers in the case, says Peter Guttinger, vice president of engineering for Langen Packaging.

"Let's say you have small cereal cartons. If you try to load them sideways, they could fall apart," Guttinger says. "If you have a lot of layers, you'd rather pick them and place them." Flexible packages are another problem for mechanical loaders, he says: "If you try to push them, you're pushing sand."

Pearson Packaging Systems has used robotics for palletizing for years, and is just starting to use them for case packing. As they come down in price and increase in reliability, robots become more suitable for case packing, says Scott Reed, director of sales and marketing for Pearson Packaging Systems.

"The biggest barrier to entry in our market in the past has been [that] the jury was still out on how reliable a robot is," Reed says. But the increased use of servo motors in robots has greatly helped their reliability