Increased yield
Founded in 1921, Wolfgang Candy is one of the oldest family-owned and managed candy companies in the United States. It manufactures millions of pounds
of seasonal candies for various organizations and groups; read more at www.wolfgangcandy.com. Above, robots pick and place delicate caramel-filled cookies.
Handle with care
Robots mean cookie quality – and consistency –
has improved at Wolfgang Candy. Text Alex Miller Photography JLS
F
ounded in 1921, Wolfgang Can-
dy of York, Pennsylvania, is one
of the oldest family-owned and
managed confectionery man-
ufacturers in the United States. Until
r ecently, the company’s picking, placing,
inspecting and packaging phases of its
operation were primarily done manually.
When the company concluded that this
limited efficiency and growth, it turned to
leading automation integrator JLS Auto-
mation, also located in York.
“We needed a system that could meet
or exceed 200 pieces per minute,” says
Rob Wolfgang, Managing Partner respon-
sible for Food Safety and Quality. “JLS
has given us both flexibility and speed.
We can pick-and-place nearly anything,
which lets us deliver customized prod-
uct solutions for existing and future
customers.”
The system is designed to meet FDA
requirements for food contact. Two IRB
340 FlexPicker robots from ABB are
top-mounted delta robots with vacuum
tooling capable of gently p icking and
placing delicate cookies precisely and
reliably, one cookie at a time, into ther-
moform trays. Using a vision system and
the ABB PickMaster software, the IRB
340 pick-and-place robots accurate-
ly select perfect objects, ignoring mis-
placed or defective items on the belt.
The robot and vacuum tooling needed
to be precisely coordinated so that the
caramel-filled cookie can be picked up
without losing its caramel filling due to
too much pressure. The robot placement
repeatability during the conveyor tracking
is within 1 millimeter, allowing the cookies
to be placed into a very tight tray com-
partment. The trays are placed onto a
flow wrapper infeed, after which the trays
are wrapped and then discharged.
With the automated system in place,
Wolfgang Candy has increased pro-
duction, improved quality and safety,
r educed contamination issues and re-
duced its labor costs. The company
estimates that with the new automat-
ed system, it has increased packaging
speed by approximately 12 and a half
percent.
“We’ll be able to compete more
e ffectively with our Wolfgang-branded
products,” says Wolfgang.
Robot benefits
− − Improved quality and
consistency
− − Increased packaging
speed by 12.5 percent
− − Higher production at 200
pieces per minute
− − More flexibility
− − Better for employees
− − Shorter return on invest-
ment than with other capital
investments
JLS Automation
Founded in 1955 by Joseph L.
Souser, JLS Automation provides
advanced motion control technol-
ogy in many industrial applications
requiring precision and reliability.
Read more at
www.jlsautomation.com
ABB robotics 2|10
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