Increased production output
Dotting every eye
With faultless precision, robot-assisted production
transforms Perryman’s bakery in Australia.
Text Val Pavlovic Photography Perryman’s
A
nyone doubting that robotics
can put the icing on the cake
for a small business should
see the production line at Per-
ryman’s of North Adelaide in South Aus-
tralia. Perryman’s is a forward-thinking
family bakery that has made a name for
itself on the quirky appeal of its popu-
lar “Gingerbread Babies.” For owner and
manager Neil Perryman, integrating a ro-
bot into the company’s production pro-
cess was simple and sensible.
“The return on investment has been
immense,” he says. “We couldn’t have
reached a higher level of production with-
out a certain amount of automation, yet it
hasn’t affected our recipe, which retains
the hand-made, homemade feel.” (The
company’s legendary recipe was handed
down the family line by Neil Perryman’s
own grandmother.)
In the production solution put to-
gether by integration specialist SAGE,
an ABB robot dots the eyes, nose and
bellybutton on each of 120 Gingerbread
Babies in less than three minutes. “Be-
fore we moved to our current location in
Brompton [on the outskirts of Adelaide],
our output capacity was about 5,000 to
Quick facts
− − The robot is about 1,500 mil-
limeters square and 2.4 me-
ters high; each Gingerbread
Baby is around 55 millimeters
in length and 35 millimeters
wide.
− − The compact, flexible work-
cell size is 1.2 by 1.2 by 2.2
meters.
6,000 Gingerbread Babies per day,” says
Perryman. “The robotic addition raises
capacity to about 15,000 a day.” Four
dots on each of 15,000 Gingerbread Ba-
bies adds up to 60,000 dots of icing – a
massive task in manual terms, which Per-
ryman says would require a large team
and far more space than a robotic cell.
The solution
To start, SAGE reviewed the scope of
what was desired and researched avail-
able options. The resulting design was a
compact, flexible work cell with an ABB
IRB 140 robot hung from the top of the
cell. The robot utilizes a vision system to
identify the location and position of each
of the 120 cookies on a tray as they leave
the oven. Using that information, the ro-
bot positions a dispensing gun over each
cookie in turn, icing all 120 in three min-
utes.
The concept became a completed
solution in just 12 weeks. SAGE supplied
the mechanical design, build and com-
missioning; the electrical design, build
and commissioning; and a manual feed
station. This solution for a simple, for-
merly manual task demonstrates that ro-
bots are fully affordable and applicable
for small and medium-sized enterpris-
es; the most mundane, time-consuming
tasks can be transformed into quantifi-
able profit makers.
“Overall output can be as much as tri-
ple because the robot integrates with our
other technologies, including packing ma-
chines and moulding machines, so our
production process has been accelerat-
ed,” says Perryman. The added speed and
accuracy has greatly increased output, po-
ABB’s RobotStudio software was used to
visualize, program and test the installation
before manufacturing began.
ABB robotics 2|10
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