Product category:
Robotics, Handling and Storage
News Release from: Scott Automation | Subject: Robot arms
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 04 December 2002
Robot fillets the Christmas leg of lamb
A technology company in the South Island of New Zealand has adapted a robotic arm to the point where it will be boning legs of lamb for this year's Christmas dinners.
A technology company in the South Island of New Zealand has adapted a robotic arm to the point where it will be boning legs of lamb for this year's Christmas dinners Dunedin-based Scott Automation has programmed a robotic arm to bone-out legs of lamb at a speed at which four arms could replace an entire team of 10 or 12 humans on a meatworks boning bench, never slipping and never tiring
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 16 Jul 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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The first operational robot arm will be installed this month at the PPCS Silverstream cutting and packaging plant near Dunedin, and more robots will be added to the company's three main plants during the season as they roll off the Scott Automation production line.
The technology is a big jump for the meat sector.
A decade ago, the original robotic technology for meatworks, the SRV "shiny robot" designed for the Meat Research Development Council, was created to cut sheep and lamb pelts away without damaging the meat on the carcass.
The initial idea of using a robot to make the "Y cut" - one of the most repetitive and difficult jobs that meat processors have to do - was to free skilled staff to work in the higher returning, value-added further processing areas, such as the boning room.
The new arm replaces a human arm and its wrist movement with machinery that can bone two legs of lamb from the pelvic "aitchbone" every 30 seconds.
The process involved re-engineering the method that replicated a hand and arm with a system sufficiently "smart" to sharpen, clean and change its own knives.
A patent application to protect the intellectual property that is owned jointly by PPCS and Scott has been filed, and the technology is to be marketed to other meat companies - including those processing pork, beef and venison - around the world.
PPCS chief executive, Stewart Barnett, said the trend of added-value retail-ready products instead of carcasses, was increasing the demand for labour in rural industry.
"The butcher shops on the other side of the world used to cut the meat, but now we do it here", he said.
The robots would enable PPCS to maintain labour requirements at about the same levels while increasing production, he said.
The robotic arm duplicates the actions of a human hand and arm, but boosts yield because more meat is taken from the bone, with greater consistency - every piece cut exactly the same.
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