Robotic Palletizing Cuts Labor Costs: Think robotic palletizing is too costly or insufficiently flexible to meet your material handling needs? Not for this book manufacturer. The secret is in the end effectors

摘要

It seems like a simple task, removing stacks of unfinished books from one machine and placing them onto a pallet. It should be easy to automate. Until recently, though, manual labor was required to handle the fragile product. Scott Simons, vice president of operations, Maple Press Co., a part of the Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group, York, Pa., wanted to eliminate the cost of this labor. The 100-year old company produces 30 million books and related products annually. Automating the book-palletizing task with robotic palletizers seemed the ideal solution, but it had always been a challenge.