Fanuc
The LRMate 200iD
ROBOTIC POT
SWAP UNIT
RESPONDS TO
RETAIL DEMANDS
In response to rising retailer
demand for mixed product trays,
FANUC has collaborated with integrator Pacepacker Services to engineer a first-of-its-kind robotic pot
swap tray loading system.
The robotic pick and place unit
swaps pots between cardboard
trays combining FANUC’s LR
Mate200iD robot with Pacepacker’s new Mixed Tray Loader (MTL)
technology.
It provides a flexible and compact
solution for generating the assorted
trays of product that are increasingly being requested by retailers.
“The trend towards pallets of mixed
products, driven by retailers requiring smaller, more frequent deliveries, is now being extended to case
level. Mixed trays or cases allow
supermarkets to offer a broader
choice of product sizes, flavours and
variants and to keep their shelves
replenished without having to hold
a lot of stock.
Equally, convenience and inner-city
stores are finding that mixed cases
or trays allow them to offer a far
wider product range on restricted
shelf space,” says John Rainer, Regional Sales Manager from FANUC
UK, explaining the rationale for the
launch of the robotic product swap
unit.
The robotic pot swap system can
be configured as either an offline
or an online system. The system developed and installed by Pacepacker Services at the UK dip producer
was an offline execution, positioned
over twin lanes of filled trays. The
picking heads remove one line of
product from the first tray, and
place it into the second tray.
The process is then reversed to
swap items in both trays. In an
online configuration, the MTL
would typically be fed by multiple
product lines, with a robot picking a
row from one conveyor and placing
it in a tray, then picking a row from
another conveyor and so on.