Robotic cartoner Cartoner 4.0

verticalfor the pharmaceutical industryautomatic

Mpac Langen’s Cartoner 4.0 concept is an industry first that enables efficient and cost-effective ecommerce packaging on demand, as well as in small series and low volumes. The robotic cartoner has been developed in response to industry 4.0 – a global trend of automation and cloud-based data exchange in manufacturing that will enable more flexibility, production on demand, higher reliability and enhanced track and trace capabilities for products. Cartoner 4.0 is a robotic cartoning machine offering a highly flexible, small footprint solution that can integrate seamlessly alongside human workers. It can pick and pack batches of varying sizes and products of different types, without the need for a changeover or adjustment. The Cartoner 4.0 concept can be applied to many different market sectors from warehouse to manufacturing, ecommerce packaging, small business, pharma and healthcare. The highly innovative prototype uses two collaborative, vision-system-equipped FANUC robots that only function when a product is present. Using a camera, the system recognises when a product is placed into the product pick-up container. This triggers one robot to pick up the corresponding carton and erect it, and the second robot to pick up the product, load it into the carton and then seal it. The Cartoner 4.0 prototype can pack up to 15 to 20 cartons per minute and handle a multitude of different products and cartons on demand. This enhancement allocates more time to value-added activities by eliminating the 15-20 minutes of human intervention typically required for a changeover. Depending on the products and cartons, Cartoner 4.0 could save up to several hours of production time a day.