System ends lottery of game card distribution

UK National Lottery organiser Camelot has placed an order with Modular Automation for an automation system to speed the distribution of gaming cards throughout the country.

UK National Lottery organiser Camelot has placed an order with Modular Automation for an automation system to speed the distribution of gaming cards throughout the country.

The new system picks and compiles orders for a range of gaming cards for distribution to national lottery outlets UK wide.

It is designed to be more efficient than the existing purely manual system and to significantly reduce or eliminate picking errors.

Camelot has in excess of 200 game cards of which up to 20 types are distributed each week.

The picking system has magazines for up to 30 card packs and can make up distribution orders for any combination of packs as requested by the company's newly upgraded computer system.

The system uses an Adept robot to pick individual card packs from the magazines, run them over a barcode scanner to verify that the pack is 'live', then place the chosen packs onto a conveyor for transfer to the packing department.

The process is repeated until the order is complete.

If the order includes a new card pack the system automatically includes the relevant merchandising material.

Packing will still be done manually.

The new system significantly improves efficiency and will relieve several operators from the very boring, repetitive work, releasing them for essential work elsewhere within the company.

The new system was delivered in January 2002.

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