Design

A specially developed vision-enabled robotic picking unit from RTS Flexible Systems has been installed at Ilchester Cheese Company to help it reduce packaging costs and improve portion homogeneity.

The Pixcell system is used for loading 20g portions of unwrapped, blended cheese into retail packs and operates at 150 portions/min. It replaces a manual picking station that required two operators/shift.

As well as reducing labour costs the unit is also more accurate at assessing portion weights than the human operators, further reducing costs by preventing the supply of over-sized portions.

The unit uses a Keyence LV-H110 Series laser sensor to detect the height of each portion as it approaches the picker inline.

The data is merged by the RTS FlexVision, with the images from a top-mounted camera. FlexVision determines products to be picked, based on height, and distributes robot guidance data to the two ABB IRB340 Flexpicker robots.

When a portion is detected that does not fall within the specified parameters, it is left on the conveyor unpicked and collected at the end of the line for recycling.

“This is a new development for us but it’s the kind of technology that can be adapted for other sorts of applications,” said David Bradford, managing director of Manchester-based RTS Flexible Systems.

“Increasingly, manufacturers are seeing automation as a means of gaining process advantages. Even small percentage reductions in process loss, out-of-specification products or waste can add up to significant savings and more than justify the investment costs,” he added.