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48 MACHINERY UPDATE July/august 2018 www.machineryupdate.co.uk
Feature: Automation, robotics and vision
Robotics has
sweetened
work patterns
A highly automated solution from Cama has replaced manual
loading and older-technology equipment to streamline the
operations at a US-based confectioner to meet customer needs
W
orld’s Finest Chocolate is a
Chicago-based chocolate
company whose chocolate
bars have been used for
fund raising efforts by
schools and other organisations since
1949. And because its customer base
is rarely retailers but more likely to be
schools, churches, clubs and other
organisations, orders come through
in a huge variety of formats.
To accommodate these customer needs,
the company has installed a highly
automated solution that does away with
manual loading and older-technology
machine loading of its work in process
(WIP) corrugated totes. Robotic loading
of custom-made and reusable plastic
WIP totes are now the order of the day.
Also new is the automatic removal of
primary packs from these plastic totes
and their placement into variety packs.
Like the upstream tote-loading robotics,
the placement of individual packs into
corrugated variety packs is completed
on a system from Cama.
At the plant, six Cama IT 285 systems
load primary packs into reusable plastic
WIP totes that are taken to a Cama IG 270
system that stretches a total of nearly
14 metres. In the Cama IG 270 are 13
delta-style robots.
Orders are placed in a huge number of formats
The first ten robots pick primary packs
out of the totes and place them into a
dual-lane flighted conveyor running
down the centre of the Cama IG 270.
At the end of this machine are three
delta-style robots that pick primary packs
out of the dual-lane flighted conveyor and
In variety packs,
all five flavours had to
face upwards on the
top row of the cases
place them into corrugated cases.
In operation, one of the six Cama IT 285
robotic tote loading systems is loading
$1 bars. In this case, bars exiting the
flow wrapper are fed by an infeed belt at
400 bars a minute. Each bar is fed into
a flighted carrier on a Cama race track
conveyor running off at a right angle.
As soon as 24 bars are all in their flights,
that carrier is indexed into a pick station
and a second carrier on the Cama race
track conveyor begins collecting the next
batch of 24 bars. Meanwhile, a robotic
tool uses vacuum suction cups to pick
24 bars and then load two layers of bars
into plastic totes, 12 in one tote and 12 in
the other.
AUTOMATIC TOTE INDEXING
When 16 layers are in each tote, it
automatically indexes out to a station
where an operator can place it on a pallet.
The Cama robot, however, doesn’t wait for
two new totes to occupy the loading station.
Instead, it begins filling two totes right
beside the two that have just been filled.
Meanwhile, empty totes move
automatically into position so that they
are ready when it’s time for them to
be loaded.
In total, the company runs 23 different
combinations of primary packs that have