Robots in Dairy Production

"In order to increase their efficiency and competitiveness, Bulgarian companies are increasingly turning to the robotisation of production,” SIMLOGIC manager Plamen Penev says. “To realise such large-scale and complex projects, a strictly bespoke approach is needed for the design and development of a complete solution by specialised engineering companies such as ours." 

For the needs of ELVI Ltd, a dairy products manufacturer, SIMLOGIC designed and developed a robotic installation for palletising plastic crates containing yogurt. 

ELVI developed a special gripper for picking up four crates at the same time, with its main structural elements and details designed, manufactured and assembled by their team.

The capacity of the two production lines is approximately 720 crates per hour. Importantly, the installation has the ability to palletise boxes according to operator request: from two lines on the same pallet; from one line on two pallets; or from each line on to its own corresponding pallet. 

An industrial controller provides overall system control, with an industrial touchscreen display facilitating the actual setting of parameters for palletising. The panel visuals are entirely in Bulgarian language – developed by SIMLOGIC especially for this application. As a future extension of the system, ELVI would like the industrial robot to place empty pallets in specified positions.