Robot first for palletising beef in an abattoir

Citation

(1999), "Robot first for palletising beef in an abattoir", Industrial Robot, Vol. 26 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.1999.04926daf.002

Robot first for palletising beef in an abattoir

Robot first for palletising beef in an abattoir

Keywords Food, Palletising, Robots

For the first time in Australia, and probably the world, robots are being used in an abattoir to palletise cartons of frozen meat. Australian Meat. Holdings commissioned Robotic Automation Pty Ltd to design, supply and install a turnkey system for the robot palletising of 20 boxes of frozen meat a minute.

Australian Meat Holdings' facility at Dinmore, near Ipswich, is the largest in Australia, killing 2,300 head of cattle a day. As part of the expansion in its freezing and handling capacity, Australian Meat Holdings is using two Motoman SP100 robots from Robotic Automation Pty Ltd for handling.

The upgrade to automated robotic palletising is part of the company's complete renovation of its Dinmore site. Previously the company used manual palletising, but now nearly two-thirds of the frozen meat palleting process can be overseen by one robot operator.

The robots are located in the cold store where ambient temperatures approach 0°C and where they are used to palletise 30kg cartons of frozen beef. To cater for the company's home and export sales requirements, the robots are programmed to palletise a range of different sized cartons into different palleting positions.

As part of its palletising solution, Australian Meat Holdings requires each robot to be capable of palleting up to six different products simultaneously.

This is achieved through bar code readers, which can scan the unique bar code on each product. The bar code scanner has many roles: it identifies the product to the robot software so that it can be correctly palletised; and it operates as a built-in check ­ if a bar code is wrong or illogical the robot will put the product on a reject line. Bar codes are used in conjunction with conveyor sorters to feed products to the correct robot.

The system is broken down into two cells, each cell containing one robot and six pallet stations stacking six different products at any one time. The use of separate cells enables routine maintenance and breakdowns to be attended without halting production entirely. The robots use a tyne gripper designed and engineered by Robotic Automation to ensure a firm grip of the boxes during handling.

The system designed by the systems integrator is flexible and able to expand in line with the operator's increasing production requirements.

Initially, the robots will palletise two different sized boxes but will eventually handle four different sized boxes. Starting with two robot cells, the turnkey installation has the capacity to expand to four separate cells.

The system includes a unique shuttle and "park" bench designed by the automation company to deliver empty pallets to the robot and remove full pallets. If a new pallet is moving into place, boxes are stored in the park bench to ensure smooth flow of production. No accumulation conveyors are used to pick off or infeed roles. The shuttle conforms with height restraints of the facility and incorporates a heavy duty lift mechanism to handle each pallet of cartons, weighing over one tonne. Pallets are dispensed from a two-way pallet dispenser.