Robots take the biscuit

Bahlsen, the German manufacturer of cakes and biscuits, has modernised a packaging line with 24 SIG Delta robots.

Bahlsen, the German manufacturer of cakes and biscuits, has modernised a packaging line with 24 SIG Delta robots.

The SIG Delta robots pick up fragile wafers, directly from a conveyor belt, and then gently place them in a specified arrangement into waiting trays.

The sensitive handling ensures that the easily breakable wafers reach the trays intact, even at such incredibly high production speeds of more than 2500 pieces a minute.

Previously, the wafers were packed on a Scara robot system, as well as manually on a second production line.

However, these systems could not keep up with the increasing demand for the wafers or meet the revised, more testing demands of Bahlsen for a more flexible and more efficient handling and packaging line.

Bahlsen chose the handling and packaging system offered by SIG Pack Systems for its high efficiency, minimum space requirements and low maintenance costs.

What was previously carried out in a tedious manual four-shift operation, is now reliably performed by the SIG Delta robots in a 6-day cycle, round the clock, producing a much higher output., With the new SIG system, the trays are fed into the robot area on two conveyor belts.

These are then filled and finally sealed on a SIG pillow pack machine to ensure airtight protection.

From a total of four storage towers, up to 240 trays are dispatched every minute.

Perfect presentation in the trays is maintained through the application of SIG vision technology, which enables the system to reject any pieces that are found to be incomplete, damaged or stuck together.

The new SIG system has also saved space.

This has enabled Bahlsen to improve the quality of the wafers, as it was possible to lengthen the cooling tunnel and, with that, the product cooling time, which contributes towards improving the product quality.

A further advantage is that, whilst the previous slower robot line required multi-grippers, the new flexible SIG Delta robot system uses only single grippers.

This results in much less maintenance work, and lower spare parts and wear and tear costs.

With the system designed for simple operation, Bahlsen staff required only three days of training before being able to independently operate and manage it.

As a result, the system already has an overall efficiency level at a staggering 99%.

Although only the wafers are currently being processed, in the future, the simplicity and flexibility of the SIG Pack Systems handling and packaging system, in terms of product size and shape, will allow Bahlsen to reach similar efficiencies in handling a whole range of baked products of different forms and consistencies.

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