Pompeian Inc., a leading packager of olive oils, vinegars and cooking wines, encountered a distribution bottleneck last summer. Business was booming for the 102-year-old firm but its century-old facility in downtown Baltimore was feeling growing pains.

The cases of olive oil and other products wine were stacked on pallets and wrapped by hand. The labor-intensive process ran up labor costs. Said Kevin Lydon, vp of operations:  “Four individuals used to manually stack between 3,500 and 4,000 cases each ten-hour day on pallets.”

Pompeian called upon Ashland-based Flexicell Inc., to design a robotic palletizing system capable of handling its shipping cases. The robots had to be capable of handling cases of different sizes, six or seven different pack patterns and 15 to 21 different products.

Flexicell custom-programmed the system, utilizing Rockwell Automation’s programmable logic controller and Fanuc’s handling tool software. The system includes a Flexicell-built pallet-transfer cart, six palletizing robots, and a Wulftec stretch wrapper. The robots can handle cases weighing up to 37 pounds, using vacuum grippers powered by an electrical vacuum pump. When the robots finish stacking a pallet, they signals the transfer cart to come to the cell and pick up the load.

The entire palletizing/case-handling system was designed, constructed, assembled, tested, installed and delivered in less than six months. The cells operate 10 hours/day and four days/week. Says Lydon: “We're already seeing a payback."

Lauren R. Hartman, senior editor for Packaging Digest, has the full story. More.