Case study: Individual palletizing using a cobot
A few weeks ago, the topic of "lighthouse projects" was discussed here. Content: Cobots gain more acceptance when a company recognized in the region automates in rural areas. The integrator in this case was Bayer Automatisation from Franconia. Bayer now has a new interesting case study. Here is the press release. Once again, a supposed hidden champion was served. In this case the candle manufacturer Gala-Group.
Individually programmed cobot automates the palletizing process and safety-related stops, increasing production speed
Profitability in candle production is only possible through high volume with fully automated production. "Standard cobot applications deliver everyone," says Christian Ehrmann, Investment & Process Engineering Manager, from Gala Group. "For us, only a fully automated cobot specified for our production situation is viable to keep the piece count."
Initial situation: fully automated candle production
Gala Germany GmbH, located in Wörnitz, is part of the international Gala Group. The group has around 4,800 employees at production sites in Europe, North America and India. The portfolio includes an extensive range of high-quality candles, room fragrances and home decor. As Investment & Process Engineering Manager, Christian Ehrmann is responsible for technology and new projects of the Group. Previously, he managed the production of the then family-owned company for 26 years. Candle production at the Wörnitz site in Middle Franconia is largely fully automated. This is the only way the company can produce profitably. "Candle production is underestimated," says Christian
Ehrmann, "it's more than wax and fabric." At Gala Germany, there are 15 robots that manufacture fully automatically, far above average. There is one machine operator and one to two operators or packers per line. One line produces about 30,000 tea lights in an hour. The speed is 1,000 packs per hour or one pack per 3.5 seconds. At 12 packs, the packer has about 40 seconds to pack one box; at VE6, it's about 20 seconds. One employee is responsible for packing and quality control. For the last station, stacking the packs on the pallet, one employee would not be fully utilized. A cobot should take over the palletizing process. When setting up a cobot that collaborates with humans, safety is a key issue.
The requirement: fully automated palletizing cobot to maintain production speed
"We were therefore looking for a fully automated cobot that would simultaneously guarantee the required number of pieces and a high level of safety. As a requirement, we defined that the cobot must automatically restart the speed after a safety-related stop so that the production speed is maintained. Such a standard cobot was not available on the market, because safety is costly. "We explored the market, went to trade shows such as Fachpack, and didn't find anything anywhere. The applications all look great, but were not suitable for our challenge," explains Christian Ehrmann.
The challenge: standard solutions for cobots are not practical
For the use of a cobot at Gala, this collaborative robot needs a safety space. If a human or object enters the safety space, the cobot automatically slows down. A machine operator then has to check the area and manually bring the cobot back up. This is not practical at Gala. The goal was therefore a fully automatically controlled cobot.
Customized solution for Gala controls the cobot fully automatically after intensive analysis of the situation and processes
In spring 2020, the company Bayer from Wörnitz presented its Cobot Klaus at Gala Germany. Bayer is a medium-sized company with a team of experts that has many years of experience in automation with all well-known automotive companies and develops individual automation solutions for medium-sized production companies. Because as individual as the products and productions are, as specific the automations have to be.
Bayer's engineers have fully automated their Cobot Klaus specifically for use at Gala. Project manager Timo Herrmann and his team analyzed the situation and the processes in detail on site and recognized, among other things, that the safety problem of the cobots is triggered by the static lasers, which only overlook an angle of 270 degrees. The task of the sensors is to detect the area around the pallet. Because the packages cast shadows in the safety area during palletizing, they report a foreign object and the cobot slows down for safety reasons. However, the static sensors do not detect when the object has left the safety space again. In response, Bayer's team developed the solution for this particular situation: a second radar sensor checks for movement in the safety area. If the sensor does not detect any movement for four seconds, it signals the cobot to pick up the pace again. This individual solution and targeted programming of the cobot made it possible to fully automate palletizing at Gala Germany and maintain the production speed at the same high level of safety.
More than one requirement solved: View from outside and experience has led to further optimizations
"From the very beginning, Bayer's team took a root cause approach, first thoroughly analyzing the situation, scrutinizing processes and thereby identifying connections we hadn't thought of before. This has led to several optimizations. One example is the programming of the palletizing cobot for different packaging sizes and units, which can be selected on the monitor with one click. This means that the mobile cobot can be used very quickly in our production on three different palletizing lines for different products, ensuring a high degree of flexibility combined with high efficiency. You can already see that this many years of experience in production automation leads to effective results. This convinced us and led us to order another Cobot from Bayer," explains Christian Ehrmann.
Cooperation: the result was convincing, the expectations were exceeded, the Bayer cobot can be used several times. The investment in a 3rd cobot is being examined
The cooperation went smoothly due to the spatial proximity and the good arrangements. Queries were clarified at short notice. The timing of the implementation was swift, and Bayer kept to the promised schedule and budget: Bayer made an offer to Fima Gala in June 2020. After the situation analysis in September, the concept and budget were approved. Just three months later, in January 2021, was the acceptance. "Due to the careful analysis, the cobot was immediately ready for use after implementation and fitted perfectly into the processes. This prompted us to order another Cobot from Bayer," explains Christian Ehrmann. The Cobot Klaus was also convinced by the fact that it can be used flexibly in Gala's production on three different lines for different products. The second Bayer cobot was delivered in October 2021. Both cobots pack cartons, which employees fill. The packing force takes over quality control. The candle manufacturer is currently looking into investing in a third cobot.
Project manager Timo Herrmann explains Bayer's approach: "Through our many automation projects for completely different production processes, we have found that standard solutions are not suitable in many cases for achieving effective and efficient fully automated production. This costs most companies time and money. After all, every production is as individual as the product and the operation. Which functions and features an automated cobot must have always depends on the individual situation. Only when we have completely recorded the actual situation on site, carried out a 360 analysis and thus identified the challenges, can we develop a working solution that adds value to the company and fully automates the process. Automation is more than just having an activity performed by a cobot."
Conclusion:
"Through the as-is analysis and the unbiased view from the outside, the experts from Bayer identified the cause of the problem and were thus able to equip and implement the cobot specifically for our palletizing application. With an additional radar and release to the cobot, Bayer solved the system break between the safety stop and the manual start-up. As a result, we have a cobot that fits into our fully automated production and safely ramps up production speed again after a foreign object detection without manual intervention in the process. By working together, we have achieved optimizations for a long-term effective production process, using our time and budget efficiently," Christian Ehrmann summarizes the solution.
(Source photos: Bayer GmbH & Co. KG)
