A UR 10 robotic arm is the focal point of the pioneering palletizing/pick & place solution developed by the owner of Cobot Lift, Flemming Bischoff Truelsen, in September 2017 for Dana Lim’s factory in Køge. A solution consisting of a UR10 robotic arm coupled with a manual vacuum lifter. With a weekly production of 200-250 tonnes of filler, it adds up to a lot of heavy lifting, when 15-25kg of heavy bags with spray packs have to be packed on pallets before leaving Dana Lim’s production. Previously, an older robotic cell handled the task alone, but due to increasing demand, more capacity for palletizing was needed. The solution is a newly developed tool that connects the robot arm with the vacuum lifter and increases the performance of the free standing robot’s lifting capacity up to 30kg. That tool has now been UR + certified, which means that UR’s product warranty will continue even if used outside the original specifications. „Getting UR + certified is a huge recognition. Now we are looking forward to many more companies benefiting from the Cobot Lift,“ says Flemming Bischoff Truelsen, e.g. via the german distributor Müller Maschinentechnik. He elaborates: „The lifting capacity of the UR robotic arm can be increased so significantly by coupling it with the right tool, which enables it to solve even more types of tasks – including tasks that have been reserved for the big industrial robots so far.“
Increased Lifting Capacity
Cobot Lift’s palletizing solution is nearly two years old and has been running constantly since its introduction at Dana Lim. Here, the 15-25 kg heavy bags of filler is transported by conveyor belt to the UR robot, which guides the manual vacuum lifter to one bag at a time. Using the vacuum suction, it lifts the bag and places it in a high cardboard box on a pallet. However, Flemming Bischoff Truelsen faced a pretty big challenge before he could introduce Dana Lim to the unique solution, since it, prior to the project, only had been possible to achieve a lifting capacity of max 10kg using the largest and strongest of the collaborative robot arms from Universal Robots. „I thought, early in the process, that it might be possible to connect the robotic arm with a vacuum lifter. So I did a pre-project, where I rented a robot and a vacuum lifter and played around with it. It turned out that the solution worked perfectly for Dana Lim’s needs – and now we have a robotic arm that can lift up to 30kg,“ says Flemming Bischoff Truelsen.
Cost and Space Efficient
Dana Lim is satisfied with the new palletizing solution. Factory Manager Erik Valentin states: „We have increased the capacity of the parcel line and eliminated bottlenecks. Robot technology is an ideal way to improve efficiency.“ „We would like new robot technology into the house. We already have many machines in our production, and by combining them with new technology we can remove lifting work from employees and improve their working environment, while increasing our capacity,“ he says. The fact that a solution with a UR robotic arm was chosen, is due to both economy and size, according to the factory manager: „The new palletizing plant costs 1/3 of a complete standard palletizing plant, and it takes up much less space, since the robot does not require a safety shield.“