Investing in the right equipment for your processing facility can make all the difference. Robotic palletizers offer appealing benefits, but is the upgrade worth it? If you’re deciding between a conventional versus robotic palletizer, you’ve come to the right place.
At TDI Packsys, we specialize in state-of-the-art automation and packaging equipment for industrial facilities. Below, we cover everything you need to know about the pros and cons of conventional and robotic palletizing.
Understanding Conventional Palletizers
Conventional palletizers use conveyor belts to palletize one product at a time. The traditional method typically works best for a single stock-keeping unit (SKU), as it offers limited flexibility or versatility. Because conventional palletizers focus on one product type, they can offer impressive speed and consistency, though they still come with major drawbacks.
Common Types of Conventional Palletizers
Conventional palletizers come in two primary categories:
- Low-level palletizers: These palletizers operate using a floor-level conveyor belt to rotate and arrange products into an aligned row. The system then pushes complete rows together to form layers onto a pallet.
- High-level palletizers: High-level palletizers also use the conveyor belt function, but the receiving pallet can be raised or lowered to meet the infeed requirements. With this ability, high-level systems offer increased speeds.
Pros and Cons of Traditional Palletizers
Traditional palletizers work well for simple cube-shaped box applications. You can enjoy relatively decent speeds when palletizing one product type, typically averaging between 10 to 40 bags per minute or up to 200 compact boxes per minute.
With that being said, conventional palletizers still come with numerous drawbacks, including the following:
- A large footprint space: Conventional palletizers require large conveyor systems that can take up a lot of space in your facility.
- Preventative maintenance requirements: While traditional palletizers may not require specialized training, they do typically need frequent upkeep.
- Many moving parts causing potential breakdowns: Traditional palletizers have many parts that can break down due to human error, leading to safety concerns.
- Poor versatility or flexibility: Conventional systems can only palletize one type of product at a time.
- High energy costs: Traditional systems consume more energy, increasing total costs.
Looking at Robotic Palletizers
A robotic palletizer uses a robotic arm to pick up, orient, and distribute units to pallets following the pre-programmed pattern.
Because the system isn’t limited to linear conveyor belts, robotic palletizers work for multiple SKUs and can handle nearly all types of products, including entire sheets of boxes, pails, bags, bottles, bundles, drums, and more. The gripper can select multiple products at once, depending on your palletizing pattern, before dropping them off on pallets for highly efficient and seamless throughput.
Popular Types of Robotic Palletizers
Robotic palletizers primarily vary in how the robotic arm moves and functions. Here are some popular options:
- Cartesian palletizers: One robotic arm that can move in up to three directions
- Selective Compliant Articulated Robot Arm (SCARA): One arm that can move left, right, forward, or backward
- Articulated palletizers: A swivel joint arm for maximum movement and flexibility
The Advantages and Limitations of Robotic Palletizers
Robotic palletizers offer numerous advantages over their conventional counterparts, including the following:
- Greater flexibility and versatility: Robotic systems can palletize nearly all types of products, including multiple items at once.
- Speed efficiency: Depending on your product and pattern complexity, you can achieve phenomenal efficiency with robotic systems, as they allow you to pack entire sheets of units at once.
- Enhanced safety and reduced maintenance: Robotic palletizers rarely break down, so you can mitigate potential hazards at your facility.
- Increased precision: Robotic systems follow highly precise patterns with minimal error margins.
- Lower energy and space usage: The modern solution consumes less energy and takes up less space than conventional palletizers.
While robotic palletizers may come with many advantages, they still come with some drawbacks. The innovative software requires more upfront training, which may not be worth it for some smaller production environments.
Choosing the Right Palletizer for Your Facility: Comparative Analysis and Key Factors
So, how can you select the right palletizer for your facility? We recommend considering the following factors when comparing your conventional versus robotic palletizer options:
Speed and Throughput
Palletizing speeds can affect your facility’s production rates and overall revenue. Conventional and robotic palletizers can offer similar speeds, depending on the type of product you’re palletizing and the specific model you purchase. In general, conventional palletizers can deliver excellent throughput for simple, compact boxes, while robotic systems can perform quickly for nearly all product types.
Flexibility and Adaptability
If you only need to palletize one type of product, a conventional system may work fine. If your food processing facility needs to package numerous unit types, shapes, and sizes, a robotic palletizer will adapt far better to your needs.
Product Handling Capabilities
Conventional palletizers can handle cube-shaped boxes and bags. Robotic palletizers can handle the same, plus bottles, drums, entire pails of boxes, and just about any other unit type you can imagine. Consider your product handling requirements when deciding between the two options.
Footprint and Space Requirements
Conventional palletizers generally take up more floor space because of the large conveyor belt requirements. Robotic systems use a more compact robotic arm. If your facility is limited in space, you may need to invest in a robotic palletizer.
Cost of Investment and Operation
Both conventional and robotic palletizers require similar upfront investments, though conventional systems typically cost more in maintenance down the line. Conventional systems also consume more energy, leading to more operational costs.
Return on Investment (ROI)
If you want to see the highest ROI with your new palletizer, you will likely need to select a robotic system. Robotic palletizers allow you to save money on maintenance costs, downtime, and energy bills moving forward while enjoying improved efficiency.
Safety and Maintenance Considerations
When comparing your conventional versus robotic palletizer options, you also need to consider your facility’s safety. One system malfunction could cause workplace injuries, major liabilities, and more.
How Do Conventional and Robotic Palletizers Compare?
Robotic palletizers generally offer safer operation because they have fewer moving parts. The less complicated build requires minimal upkeep, so you don’t need to worry about the risks that come with frequent human intervention. Most robotic systems have cages around all components to maintain the highest safety standards.
Maintenance Requirements and Costs
Robotic palletizers offer superior reliability and uptime, rarely requiring maintenance. While conventional palletizers may not break down often, they do typically require preventative maintenance, which can cut into your productivity and bottom line.
Operator Training and Skill Requirements
For a while, many considered robotic palletizers to be quite challenging to operate. Because of this, they required ample team training. In recent years, though, they’ve evolved to become more intuitive and user-friendly.
Conventional palletizers typically require minimal training as they aren’t much more complex than the other machinery in your facility. Robotic systems may require a bit of onboarding and software skills.
Integrating and Automating Each System
Aside from the major benefits and drawbacks covered thus far, modern systems can provide additional opportunities moving forward. If you choose a robotic palletizer, you can leverage some of its innovative integration features to further automate how your facility functions.
Integration Options With Other Systems
Robotic palletizers rely on software to operate. Depending on the model you purchase, you may be able to integrate this software with your other systems for seamless functioning between your production stages. For example, you might integrate your palletizer with your slip sheet dispenser, pallet dispenser, or exit pallet conveyor so each system can communicate and operate together.
While conventional palletizers may integrate with other machines, you will not achieve the same automation in this connection.
Automation Levels You Can Achieve
When you integrate your packaging machines, you can ideally achieve full automation. From your product packaging to your palletizing, your robotic machinery can handle each step to limit human intervention while enhancing efficiency. Because robotic palletizers can pick up units from various pallets, they can work for many versatile applications throughout your facility as you automate your packaging line.
The Role of AI and Machine Learning
Robotic palletizers use innovative software that opens up the opportunity for enhanced data analysis. By leveraging AI and machine learning with your connected machinery, you may be able to locate efficiency improvements or analyze issues causing downtime to improve how your facility operates. You simply cannot receive these same insights with conventional systems.
Upgrade Your Facility’s Efficiency and Safety With TDI Packsys
Now that you know the differences between a conventional versus robotic palletizer, you can choose the right option for your facility.
At TDI Packsys, we offer highly intuitive, cutting-edge robotic palletizers to serve any niche application. Our end-of-line solutions can adapt to any kind of packaging while integrating with your entire end production line. You can choose from palletizers with a few pattern configurations or ones with all available palletizing lines.
Contact TDI Packsys today at (877) 834-6750 to get a quote for our industrial palletizers.
