FANUC robots at Kunstoff-Packungen AG
Because manufacturers everywhere face shortages of skilled labor, and as a company dedicated to excellence, Kunstoff-Packungen continuously seeks ways to improve its level of automation. Marcel Fetzer, head of Technology for the firm, explained the application they chose for robotic automation as follows.
"Our customer asked us to place the parts cavities separately in the boxes and secure them with an intermediate sheet after each layer. This is normally done by hand, and we set ourselves the goal of automating this task. It was important for us to be able to cover both small and large mold sizes with the system, and we started looking for suitable suppliers.„
Markus Roth, owner of Roth Technik GmbH, described the solution:
"We implemented a high-speed packaging solution with two FANUC robots, which take over the bottles from the injection blow-molding machine. We achieve a minimum part cycle time of up to 0.8 seconds, and the parts are deposited cavities apart, which is a very important quality advantage for the customer. In addition, the production data is stored on an RFID chip, which then automatically transfers the data to the labelling system, so that the error rate is also minimized there. Thanks to the use of two robots from FANUC, we achieve maximum flexibility, which was necessary for the different product types and processes.„
One of the features the engineers at Roth Technik used to improve the efficiency of the automation was a dual-purpose gripper. The gripper allows the robot to handle multiple plastic bottles at a time, and also to position the thin foam sheet as needed. Marcel Fetzer describes his satisfaction with the results:
"The packaging line with the two robots allows us to operate the manufacturing line autonomously. The project was successfully implemented with Roth Technik and FANUC, which prompted us to order two more systems in a different area."
