Abilities gaps are frequent in manufacturing proper now. In response to some experiences, producers are going through the most important scarcity of employees for the reason that Nineteen Eighties, with many itemizing it as their high problem.

How will you overcome abilities gaps in your corporation?

For German baked items producer Hoch Oblaten, the answer got here with robotic palletizing, together with a stunning further profit…

When Hoch Oblaten’s rising gross sales created issues

Hoch Oblaten is a producer of baked items primarily based in Bürgstadt, Germany. They concentrate on producing wafer-based baked merchandise for a spread of makes use of, together with communion wafers and residential baking.

The corporate has about 70 individuals and serves numerous worldwide markets, together with the USA.

In mid-2021, Manfred Galetzka turned the brand new Technical Supervisor on the firm. When he arrived, the corporate was doing very nicely. In reality, the corporate was doing so nicely that manufacturing was having bother.

Manfred says:

“We’ve one specific product, largely for the US market, that has been rising in demand. This was the rationale we purchased this robotic answer. It is known as “Ostergras” and it is edible grass. We pack it and ship it to the US market. 

“The German market can also be rising due to coronavirus. Persons are staying at residence, they’re cooking extra and baking extra.”

Ostergras (which accurately interprets as “Easter grass”) is created from curled, shredded wafer that’s coloured inexperienced. It’s utilized in residence baking to create an ornamental backdrop for different edible items, similar to a nest for chocolate eggs at Easter.

The surge in demand for Hoch Oblaten’s merchandise was clearly optimistic. However, it introduced challenges.

Manfred explains that Ostergras, for instance, isn’t simple to bundle:

“The form of the product does not enable it to be machine packed, so it must be executed by hand. It’s delicate and the form makes it unattainable to course of it robotically. We tried, however the consequence did not look good, so nobody was shopping for it.”

How might Hoch Oblaten sustain with the rising orders for such a fragile product?

The problem of discovering employees in baking manufacturing

To make the state of affairs much more troublesome, the corporate was struggling to seek out employees. Like many producers, there have been simply not sufficient individuals within the jobs marketplace for the work they wanted to do.

Manfred says:

“Discovering employees is our largest problem. No one desires to work with their fingers. The people who find themselves popping out of college wish to work with computer systems or be digital nomads. It is troublesome to seek out employees for manufacturing.”

This abilities scarcity meant that it wasn’t potential to rent new individuals to maintain up with the rising demand.

They wanted to seek out one other answer…

Might automated palletizing be the reply?

Sooner or later in late 2021, one in every of Hoch Oblaten’s suppliers got here to Manfred with a suggestion.

He remembers:

“The provider had a robotic palletizing answer and he thought it could be fascinating for us. We stated “okay” and he informed us to come back to their workshop to have a look at it.

“Once we had been there, we noticed the robotic working. We preferred the concept of palletizing with a robotic… however, I did not like the answer they had been utilizing.”

Palletizing was a process that could possibly be automated in Hoch Oblaten. Though the major packaging steps wanted to be carried out manually, palletizing was a non-value-added process.

The employees additionally did not like doing the palletizing process. The pallets had been typically stacked very excessive and so they had to make use of a ladder to position the highest layers of packing containers. This took loads of time.

However, the provider’s robotic answer did not go well with Hoch Oblaten’s wants.

He says:

“Their answer was just one.8 m excessive. Our process wants 2.2-2.3 m. However, the largest drawback was the programming logic.

“The robotic arm did not even know the place it was inside its workspace. So it might occur that the arm would transfer over the finished pallet and it might smash the packing containers round. That was the impression I received of it.”

He wanted to discover a higher robotic palletizing answer…

conduct a robotic answer search when your organization is small

Manfred started his seek for an answer by mapping out his necessities and drawing some sketches of how the robotic cell might look.

The duty necessities had been:

• The system had to have the ability to stack packing containers onto pallets as much as 2.3 m excessive.
• It needed to sustain with the variety of packing containers per minute set by the human packers.
• The programming wanted to be simple and the robotic wanted to know the place it was in house.
• Deployment wanted to be easy sufficient that he might deploy the system himself.
• It wanted to assist completely different pallet sizes.
• Brief supply time was important as Hoch Oblaten wanted to automate the duty as quickly as potential.

As is usually the case with small corporations, Manfred needed to analysis the answer himself. He started by looking out on-line…

The precise palletizing answer for Hoch Oblaten arrives

After some looking out, a promising-looking answer got here alongside.

On the web site of a neighborhood distributor, Jugard+künstner, Manfred first noticed the Robotiq Palletizing Answer.

The Robotiq answer met all of his necessities. It additionally allowed the robotic to load the primary pallet whereas ready for intermediate layers on the second pallet, which most different options did not assist.

The fast supply time was a key consider his shopping for choice. He ordered the Robotiq answer and it arrived in round solely 2 to three weeks.

A standard roadblock that occurs in a DIY robotic deployment

The deployment of the robotic was quite simple.

Manfred says:

“To deploy the robotic and the palletizing answer, I believe I wanted 1.5 days. However, I used to be alone so this was no drawback. The true work was in integrating the conveyor.”

As is usually the case with out-of-the-box robotic purposes, the roadblocks throughout deployment hardly ever come from the answer itself. On this case, the second-hand conveyor that Manfred had purchased brought on essentially the most challenges.

He explains:

“The conveyor was a bit damaged and I needed to repair it. This took possibly 1 week. I additionally thought that I wanted a brand new PLC to regulate the conveyor and the sensors.”

How will you get assist if you find yourself deploying your robotic alone?

Like many new clients, Manfred made use of Robotiq’s assist line.

“After a cellphone name with Robotiq assist, I noticed that I did not want an exterior PLC as a result of the robotic can management the conveyor and sensors.

“In 1.5 weeks the answer was absolutely working for the primary time. Then Robotiq helped me to unravel some minor issues with the collision mannequin. However, this was fastened very quick.”

In simply 2 weeks, Hoch Oblaten had a working robotic palletizing answer on their manufacturing line. This timeframe could be unimaginable with most typical robotic palletizing options, which may simply take months to deploy and require knowledgeable integrator.

A stunning consequence that has improved productiveness even additional

What has been the impression of the palletizing robotic on the manufacturing at Hoch Oblaten?

Manfred says:

“Since October, it has been working 8-16 hours a day. Due to the robotic, we now have one employee extra who would have executed the palletizing earlier than. They will do some work that earns cash, similar to packaging the Ostergras.

“I believe the employees are very joyful as a result of they do not should carry the packing containers to the excessive peak onto the pallet. It is a lot simpler for them to let the machine do that.”

Hoch Oblaten has additionally seen an surprising profit brought on by including the robotic to the road.

He explains:

“Generally the employees wish to beat the robotic, so they’re now working sooner. The bottleneck is now the employees!”

What’s subsequent for robotics at Hoch Oblaten?

Having seen the good potentialities of robotics, Manfred is now seeking to the longer term.

He says:

“This was the primary robotic we have now in our manufacturing facility. Now that I’ve seen how simple it was to deploy it, I am seeing robots in my thoughts in all places within the workshop.

“I am pondering of fabric choosing and decide and place — each for transferring the wafers of their packaged and the unpackaged type.

What recommendation would you give to anybody beginning with robotic palletizing?

Manfred has recommendation for anybody who is considering beginning with robotic palletizing.

He says:

“Simply do it. Do not wait. As a result of the time you are taking to consider whether or not or not you are able to do it’s misplaced time. As quickly as you do it the robotic earns cash.

“You need not suppose. You are able to do it.”

You’ll be able to study extra in regards to the Robotiq Palletizing Answer on our options web page.

What questions do you’ve got about robotic palletizing? Inform us within the feedback beneath or be part of the dialogue on LinkedIn, Twitter, Fb, or the DoF skilled robotics neighborhood.